William Brewer Reads Original Poetry

"Kind of absurd, I wake up still thinking you're alive," poet William Brewer reads. "It lasts maybe two seconds." A still silence falls over the crowd as audience members begin to contemplate the weight of his words. This was last Friday's assembly, when poet William Brewer introduced his poetry book "I Know Your Kind," a collection of poems that reflects upon the opioid crisis in West Virginia. Brewer also engaged with students during a lunch in the Latin Study on Friday.

Brewer is the winner of a 2017 Poetry Society of America Chapbook Fellowship: 30 and Under. His work has appeared in publications such as Boston Review, The Nation, and Kenyon Review Online. Formerly a Wallace Stegner Fellow at Stanford University, he is now a Jones Lecturer at Stanford. In his National Poetry Series winning book, "I Know Your Kind," Brewer illustrates, in painful and stunning beauty, the realities of opioid addiction in his home state of West Virginia.

Brewer enjoyed his experience performing at Exeter, saying that despite the brief duration of his visit, he can "say with confidence that Exonians are some of the brightest young minds [he has] ever had the privilege of meeting […] There is a serious intellectual energy between the students that is so rare in most high schools," Brewer said. "It's rare to encounter a community as unabashedly intellectual as PEA."

Fellow poet and English Instructor Matthew Miller invited Brewer to the Academy. Brewer said, "[He] has been a friend of mine for years now, long before I ever had a book. He was an early supporter of my work, and when my first book finally came out, the possibility of visiting PEA became a reality. I was deeply humbled by the invitation.”

When asked one thing he wished Exonians took away from his poetry, Brewer responded that he hoped Exeter students would see "how viable poetry is as an art form for engaging with the complicated issues of our present moment."

Sure enough, Exonians were deeply affected by Brewer's poems. "I don't think there's much poetry out there that everyone can read and say they understand, [...] but I think [Brewer's] poetry accomplished that far better than a lot of others. There's a very clear theme to [his poems]—there's a point he's trying to make throughout the book and the point is explicit,” upper Janalie Cobb said. "He's trying to tell the story of what life is like in these towns."

Brewer’s poems particularly stood out to senior Sloane Valen, who attended Brewer's lunch in the Latin Study. “He wrote for a targeted audience rather than just a personal reflection of him,” Valen said. “You hear a lot about the opioid epidemic in New Hampshire, but he actually informed me [about it] while making it more real. He [...] makes the opioid epidemic very real and accessible to everybody.”

English Instructor Duncan Holcomb concurred, noting that Brewer's visit to Exeter was fitting in a way, because "after West Virginia, the state that's suffered most from opioids has been New Hampshire."

Upper Thomas Matheos, who attended Brewer's Latin Study lunch, was able to learn more about the opioid crisis through Brewer's assembly and lunch. "He shed a lot of light on a very serious problem and helped to deepen my empathy for the people of West Virginia. It was clear he had a lot of insight into the suffering of addicts and addicts' loved ones."

Cobb commended Brewer’s stage presence during Friday's assembly. “He has a way of speaking and engaging with an audience that's simultaneously humorous and very serious and dry, but not boring. Not too emotional, but emotional,” she said. “He strikes a good balance between those which is very difficult to do, and he did that while also touching on a very serious topic.”

Senior AJ Willard enjoyed meeting Brewer after reading his poems in his senior English class. "It was really nice to get to know who the person behind these poems was," Willard said. "One big thing I learned and appreciated would be how he continually goes back to West Virginia and interacts with the people and the culture there."

Holcomb, who taught Brewer's book in his upper English classes, commented on Brewer's ability to use poetry as a medium to parse the complexity of opioid addiction. “[Brewer showed] that poetry can be visceral and crude and very immediate. It's not all about high feelings and ideas, it can engage people at any level of experience. [...] It's not just for the literate to enjoy. It can engage you right where you are in your life, just as those poems do in West Virginia,” Holcomb said.

When asked about Brewer's message, Miller responded, “I don’t know if poets have messages. That is a bit reductive. [...] But why care about Will’s work? Because we are members of the human race. Because we are here, we are alive, because sometimes we hurt and sometimes we have the capacity to heal and love each other.”