“Brown’s collection, Sana Sana, is simultaneously revelatory and familiar; like its title, the poems within aim their gaze towards healing but not healing in a conciliatory way; here Brown looks to heal by swishing a finger through the wound and holding the blood up to the light. Which is to say, Brown's writing is for the ache, for the scab, for the scar, and the ghost pain, 'It takes love to name the damage /on one’s own body.' And this is a collection about naming, about forgiving, about the music of memory and the invention of self and history in order to survive.”

“The virtue that I have long admired in the poems of Ariana Brown is the warmth that is directed upon the audience. And these poems know and identify their audience with gentleness and gratitude, even—or especially—when the audience is the self. Even death links its fingers with praise, even dislocation is met with a crawl back to some familiar affection. I am thankful to once again be witness to these poems that welcome and make space for the people who most need it. And for how Ariana Brown sets a lens on the world that is critical, but always caring.”