Starting with a “Douchebag Chorale” and ending in a reference to the famous poet Walt Whitman, Conor Bracken’s The Enemy of My Enemy Is Me treads the stolid waters and vile mud of a no-man’s land created by vicious American violence. Through the pages of his book, Bracken explores the relationship between masculinity, god, nature, and the predations that occur in the overlap between all three. Despite the gruesome, often ugly imagery used to depict these themes, a seldom glimmer of hope peeks through the clouds for just enough time to provide the reader with a sliver of hope.

In his most extensive poem, "Reassembling the Shooter," Bracken writes “light comes to punish / everything with shadows.” In a world so full of darkness, it seems ruthless that even light, typically seen as a herald of truth and goodness, punishes the world as well. Festering worms, vicious carnivores, and a “serrated green horizon” await one in the shadows ("A Short History of Operation Condor"). But in the light awaits manmade catastrophes and the ruthless carnivore: the human being. In his book, Bracken draws attention to the despair of mass shootings and gun violence, as well as American politicians and government-sponsored tragedies which show that the fangs of dogs may wait for us in the shadows, but the fangs of man await us in the light. From "Shock & Awe":

“A man can dwell inside a city
           and leave untouched
but what man is there can dwell

           within the chambers of another man
and stay himself?”

Bracken often toes the line between depressing violence and a ripping satire of it all. The book best depicts this through the characterization of Henry Kissinger. In “Henry and I Go Dancing” Bracken depicts Kissinger in a sarcastically romantic light with Kissinger saying “My heart’s your / claymore mine so point it wherever / you need the blast to go.” The satire of this historical American figure shows disdain for the corrupt and violent tendencies of the American government—tendencies that have ripped apart the world and sent the worms feeding inside. Not only that, but the connection between the heart and a claymore mine in this poem exemplifies the confusion and shell-shock a society receives after witnessing tragedies like gun violence and Operation Condor.

In terms of god, Bracken relates the all-knowing to the motif of a cantor, as well as the image of pop idol Britney Spears. In his poem about Britney, “Toxic,” Bracken mentions the cantor once again, saying “I hear the silver minotaur / the cantor left inside me / like a forgotten surgical instrument.” With a surrounding world filled with so much destruction, religion provides a space where most Americans feel some belonging or sense in the order of life—with Bracken, we see the destruction personified in the authority of the cantor. Despite this fact, in the same poem, Bracken provides another religious view in light of the “patron saint” Britney.

In the end, The Enemy of My Enemy Is Me reflects the terror and brokenness of the world around us, setting up the question: how do we pick up the pieces? His last two poems give us some clues: believe in the power of music even if you’re not its instrument and keep searching for understanding, like Whitman. But in a world rife with violence and predation, the eternal question of “where in the world do I truly belong” may go unanswered.