Casandra López’s Brother Bullet is an unflinching look at violence, mourning, and survival. Recounting the murder of her brother, López has crafted a collection of poems that takes on grief, that never avoids it or allows it to have power over the speaker. These poems refuse to be silent, and they refuse our pity. They demand our attention, our witness.

From the first lines of the book, we are invited to do more than empathize; we are made family, made one. “Where Bullet Breaks” begins:

Come—
See where Bullet broke
Brother, see where I break,
where we split into before
and after. We fracture

                                               at the root, both
                                                           believers in science and prayer.

This opening invitation and the subsequent implication of a shared loss leaves no room for ambiguity. Though we may place more comfort in religion than reason or science than faith, we break to our very cores every time someone dies violently. Our beliefs don’t protect us from tragedy. We all are on the same journey.

The diction and syntax of these poems are crisp and insistent. López never lets the reader go. Take, "Open the Door":

Ear, mouth, and hands become:
Witness. I’m all instinct. Arms and legs propelling

on their own, shutting door. There is a ringing inside
me. Bullet’s rapid breath a thick wave I must escape.

Brother’s mouth gurgles; I touch his flutter lips, his face still
penny warm. There is a buzz of black. Do you hear me?

Brother, is this what it sounds like for you?

There is no time for long, overly complicated phrasing or an unnecessary pronoun or article. “Brother” and “Bullet” are given neither throughout the book; we are allowed no opportunity to distance ourselves from this death because of the smallest “my” or “a.” We must take on the responsibility of mourning and remembrance together.

This story, this death, is revisited every day in this country, but López manages to make her family’s loss speak to all the other victims and families who have grieved and to all the other families who have been far luckier. Brother Bullet insists we cannot forget that though breaks may heal, our bones will forever show evidence of the fracture. We “need these reminders of / how we survive and still grow / so fiercely against the edges of this earth” (“Oranges are Not Indigenous”).