 No Glass Allowed poetry by tammy foster brewer - $10 if you cannot pay via paypal please feel free to email me about sending a money order or well-concealed cash here: vervebathpress(at)gmail(dot)com 8.5 x 5.5, white card stock 110#, cover edges dipped in acid-free fade-resistant red ink, anatomical heart printed on vellum & hand-stitched, numbered, stapled, 36 pgs, first impression of 50. -   Sample Poems can be found online here: Monday Morning, After A Weekend With You @ Full of Crow pumping breast milk at work @ the Denver syntax I Read Your Poem While You Were At The Bank & Therapy Poem @ Luciole Press REVIEWS: By Tammy Foster Brewer Verve Bath Press, 2009 Review By Aleathia Drehmer 2009 I am always excited when I open my mailbox and find an envelope from Amanda Oaks at Verve Bath Press. I know it has books in it; books filled with writers that give up themselves in such personal ways; books that are crafted by an artisan full of love for what she is doing. Amanda Oaks sows word seeds in the very earth we stand on. Today, I hold in my hand Tammy Foster Brewer's chapbook "NO GLASS ALLOWED" and it is bone white and ripe with detail. A vellum anatomical heart is stitched in vermilion to the cover and the edges of the book stained red. The title is hand stenciled in bold, black letters. I soak this in and I am ready to begin. "NO GLASS ALLOWED" is sectioned off into four parts with each of them building up a story of her recent life. There are painful moments, one assumes, as she dips back into an old relationship and then hurtles herself forward to a new one. There is family in different lights. There are friends at arm's length and there are sweet musings about the masterpieces in her life, her children. The first section is called Broken Glass Beneath Soft Banks and it touches on her life lived in Atlanta with the poem "Fishing in the Chattahoochee" and has her looking inward in the poem "Therapy Poem." This section is dominated by the life before the one she has now... a life before the divorce. In the poem "Open Palm" she sees clearly where she is going: "like the grooves in an open palm, there is no fortune only the lines we were born with a life leading up to a moment." The second section, There Are No Instructions For This, we find Tammy in the beginnings of her relationship with her now husband. But these poems are tentative and rich in wonder like love tends to be before we realize it is really love we are holding onto. This was my favorite section of the book. She leads us through her journey with poems like "Monday Morning, After a Weekend With You", "There Are No Instructions For This" and "Stone Mountain, Easter Sunrise Service 2008". I find that the quiet, unspoken moments in this love affair to be the best. In the poem "Sea Gypsies" such a moment is evident: "In their language there is no word for want, only understanding of give and take. You said I took away your need and you want to share water with me." Tammy again gives over to tentative passion in movement in the poem "Let the Seasons Begin": "She climbed in as he looked at her from across the center console, smiling with seat belts paused mid-way across their chests waiting for the other to stop holding back. And then she realized this is why he had asked her to wear a skirt. And this is why she did." The third section of the book is called Imagine You Are A Song Played By Violins and it dances around her own childhood and serves as a flashback as to how she has become the woman she is today; it gives insight to choices and sometimes cryptic, abstract poems that are scattered throughout this book. One poem in particular touched me deeply and it is a poem about image, body image. I shared this devastation with many young girls growing up and to an extent, it has never left me. The poem "So, you think you're fat?" struck a chord that nearly lead to tears: "Sometimes I open my mouth & everything I've ever eaten comes out in the shape of a mirror. Sometimes, I'm not afraid to look." The last section of the book, Resting Between Scenes, relates to life right now and the glories of love and motherhood. It has undertones of great happiness after the grief of finding out what you thought was love really wasn't. It speaks to being flexible and bending and open. It gathers up the fragments that needed putting in a box in poems like "Losing Touch" , "We Don't Disturb" and "Over Soup." But what is really poignant comes from the poem "We Are Born Poets": "And then somehow along the way we forget to look at the world from our hands and knees" "NO GLASS ALLOWED" is a verdant collection of moments in Tammy Foster Brewer's life in several phases and she implores you to walk down that path with her. She is someone you will want to get to know, someone willing to share of herself precious falters and discoveries. Aleathia Drehmer 2009  Bio: Tammy F. Brewer (formerly Trendle) is married to the poet, Robert Lee Brewer, and is a mom to 2 sons and 2 stepsons. She received her BA in English from Georgia State University in 1997. She was born, raised, and still resides in Atlanta, GA where she works as a paralegal. She can be reached at tammyfbrewer@gmail.com.
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