Safia Jama Unpacks the Shadowy Figures in Brett Fletcher Lauer's Newest Collection of Poems, A Hotel in Belgium

Safia Jama uncovers the strangers and shadowy traumas in Brett Fletcher Lauer's latest collection out now from Four Way Books, called A Hotel in Belgium.

The title of Brett Fletcher Lauer’s debut collection—A Hotel in Belgium—embodies the aesthetics of the poems, a shimmering alloy of detail and abstraction.

The book opens with a frontispiece titled “Poem.” The speaker sets up some rules of engagement for what is to follow:

A poem is a “room made/ of chance.” Indeed, the collection is very much concerned with the idea of “chance”—both in terms of the arbitrary nature of life and in terms of the predetermined nature of privilege.

In a poem titled “Stockholm Syndrome,” the shape-shifting speaker is hard to pin down, switching pronouns, and distancing himself from himself with each new line:

Such a voice seems risky, even problematic, as poets don’t get the carte blanche of fiction writers, no matter how many times we repeat that the poet is not the speaker. Yet that moral ambiguity is also what makes the poem so startling, and the title “Stockholm Syndrome” has you forewarned.

Now that you are warned, read more at The Volta.