Brandon Courtney

Another poet I'd like to highlight is Brandon Courtney. He has a great mix of an American style with drops of classic feeling in it. His piece "Abstain" is a good example of a very appealing modern style, it has great contrasts. Any modern piece is always going to invite contrast with where it comes from and what came before it. "Abstain" has great personal moments bookended by larger, eternal ones. 

Courtney doesn't fall into the typical trap of ill-balanced contrasts. He has some great moments in "Abstain" which I will quote here, from Thrush Poetry's March 2013 issue here:
[...]
a bottle of  bourbon   in the liquor 
cabinet to remind him  of what he 
can   no longer  have,    no   longer
swallow.         Between              his 
comforter――musky    sheets――he 
keeps   the   same:       sleep, [...]
knuckle s   tight    as   execuioner’s 
knots [...]
blood-drop pearls,  [...]
crown,   its   crescent   horns   to  a
spindrift of  stars, and  showed me
how, like every animal,  the moon
lies down sideways to die. 



His piece "Public Lashing, Iraq, 2004" in Thrush Poetry's March 2013 issue here has a great ending as well:
[...]
down into the black water of our 
bodies,   watching from the trellis 
of heaven’s bridge.  What are you 
waiting for?     The night is never
dark  enough    for  our  bodies to 
hide;    the   night  is   never  dark  
enough to sleep.