Ten Poems about Brothers

Brothers of all shapes and sizes
Brotherly love can be a complex thing. Part of our family sequence of poems, this wonderful selection celebrates brothers of all ages, shapes and sizes, and explores the joys and challenges of our relationships with them.

There’s a young brother who loves riding down the stairs on a tea-tray, and teenage brothers who are so alike they even smell the same. There are brothers who fight, brothers who sing, and a brother who won’t answer the phone to his anxious sister. And we meet the brother who:

“…has made, out of petrol and hormones,
a little world for himself, a paradise
of hang-gliders and cars;”
from ‘My Lost Brother’ by Ben Scammell

There are also brothers who disappear – into a new life or into death – but who live on vividly in the memories of those left behind. These poems reflect the abiding love we feel for a brother and demonstrate how this can infuse and enrich a life, and sometimes even save it.

Poems by Matthew Dickman, Jonathan Edwards, Lavinia Greenlaw, Joanne Limburg, Hannah Lowe, Rebecca McClanahan, Rob Miles, Mary O’Donnell, Ben Scammell and Floyd Skloot.

Cover illustration by Hilke MacIntyre.