And Not to Break

At the core of this elegantly crafted book is a riveting cautionary tale about heartbreak, disaffection, and visceral family dysfunction that soars to agonizing life as a result of the poet’s precise and startling language. Set against a largely dystopic landscape of “bursting gamma rays, rogue asteroids … and latent nuclear fiascos,” And Not to Break is chock-full of “weird surprises” and unpredictable syntactical energy. Beware, most of all, Sylvester’s exhilarating hyphenated adjectives that pack a psychological and intellectual wallop.

–Peter Covino, Distinguished Judge