Blood Harmony

An unflinching tale of selfishness and sacrifice, guilt and resentment, hope and despair, Bruce Snider’s fourth collection tells the story of two brothers torn apart by opioid addiction. “He needed help,” writes Snider. “I imagined the chemicals in his brain like the chemicals in mine. // I imagined our DNA, mirrors facing one another—an infinite us.”

These sublime poems paint a singular portrait of rural working-class America populated by shuttered tool factories and country gay bars, hidden fishing holes and Dolly Parton drag queens. Drawing on music and myth, science and history, Snider interrogates the bonds of family, exploring themes of masculinity, devotion, sexuality, and the biology of addiction. Yet for all its competing tensions, Blood Harmony leaves us with an enduring portrait of brotherhood defined as much by tenderness as by pain.

In considering the parable of the prodigal son, Snider acutely notes, “without the older brother’s / flawed heart, // there is no story.” And finally, in a later poem, he reminds us that “Cain must be judged / because he did what’s forbidden— // he survived.”