"A stirring exploration of trauma and healing ... The collection's greatest strength is the author's wrenching honesty; it takes courage to reveal the realities of psychic pain, and these poems are braver than most in that regard."

- Kirkus Reviews

"Powerful and moving...Constructed in a vivid, free style verse, Brown's poems bleed anguish and heartbreak and his feelings of desperation and powerlessness show the reality of mental illness."

- The Prairies Book Review

"Each piece speaks of the fragility of emotions, relationships, life influences, and states of mind. Each poem provides a piece to a puzzle, juxtaposed with each other to support a bigger picture. Break is recommended not only for poetry and literary collections, but as a reflective piece for mental patients and their families."
- D. Donovan, Senior Reviewer, Midwest Book Review

Adam Levon Brown's remarkable collection, Break, shaped as a connected series of poems of address, takes us with shaking hand and clear voice through the heart of family trauma, into the life that must cope with its consequences, and salvage from the nearly final wreckage the means not only of survival, but transcendence. It is a gift of light derived through confrontation, narrative inquiry, persistent yearning to say what is needed, and an arrival at voice that eclipses the narrative project. The poem-by-poem evolution of language matching with near perfection voice, leg by leg, to journey elevates this collection from remembrance to gift.

- Marc Zegans, Poet, Author of La Commedia Sotterranea