The Toronto Star

    ... Unrestrained, imaginative writing.
    Brown's magic is the vibrating universe,
    his sympathy is his ability to receive these
    vibrations. Sympathetic Magic captures
    the movement of life in its intervals -
    his poems resemble stopped action photographs from a film.
    THE TORONTO STAR



    ... The poetry is fine ...    rewarding reading ...
    Almost every poem in Sympathetic Magic boasts
    an admirable image or two. Brown can write,
    without a doubt.
    POETRY CANADA POESIE



    ... Wry humour.
    The poet revels in image and can use it well.
    Paul Cameron Brown is capable of interesting,
    even arresting work.
    CANADIAN BOOK REVIEW ANNUAL 1985



    Le voyage exotiqu...

...wry humour.
The poet revels in image and can use it well.
Paul Cameron Brown is capable of interesting,
even arresting work.

...Unrestrained, imaginative writing.
Brown's magic is the vibrating universe,
his sympathy is his ability to receive these vibrations.
Sympathetic Magic captures the movement of life in its intervals -
his poems resemble stopped action
photographs from a film.

    She sits within the Magic Lantern
    - that facsimile for pleasure,
    decor of wineskins where
    at $2.50 a garment
    extravagance comes extra;
    skin like rosy flames
    the whisk of smoke
    at hearthside
    sunlight about her face.

    Cherubs arise from those lips
    and battle lines are drawn
    about the sweet curvature of her breasts.
    A tight cashmere sweater rides
    comfortably two of the finest King's
    deer headstrong thru Sherwood Forest.

    And, Merry Man,
    firmly planted in Lincoln Green,
    the plodding turf growing at odds within my soul -
    give this brief to the Sheriff at Buckingham;
    I cool my heels, the soft doe lies prostrate at my feet.

    She's loveliness,
  ...

    Everyone is a poet, or so the philosopher said. The world teems
    with poetry in much the sense the universe teems with life.
    A poet or two is squirrelled away in every major office.
    Boiler rooms hum with the tooth and nail, robust imagery of
    working class poets. The neurological desire to express oneself
    transcends even social barriers. Be creative, like a brain surgeon.
    My scalpel runneth over amongst all those cerebral ganglia.

    The mind washed clean, scrubbed down. Words burn holes on the
    paper. Firemen disguised as poets douse the heroic flames.
    Sherpas tightly drawn amidst depths of a Himalayan winter
    weather a torrent of words. Groggy, I search for breath, am given
    oxygen but see writing materials.

    In the future,...

    There is a star near
    the hinge of planets,
    a barn under
    a cow's lick of moon -
    plausible people
    moving thru an
    airless universe.

    Pay attention to the frond of lilac
    . . . limestone troughs upon which
    thickets of Indian scalp &
    devil's paintbrush soar
    to the horizon
    and, afterwards,
    little creeks run
    with the sparrows of evening time
    in step to tiny boatmen
    that echo enamelled snails
    from the very consonants of earth.

    Rustle of leaves,
    some might argue
    breathless gasps
    to intone the savagery
    of little seasonal voices
    cut off
    mid-stream.

    A spate of bees,
    early colonizers
    deflo...