"Dharma Talk is one of those small, rare books that feel profoundly necessary." --Carl Dennis , Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Practical Gods and Earthborn "John's work reminds me of the great Japanese haiku poets: their attention to the smallest details, compression of language, and a rich appreciation of nature and the human condition." --Joseph Goldstein , author of Mindfulness: A Practical Guide to Awakening "Think of this collection as a Guidebook to Emptiness--to everything and nothing (which, as the poet tells us, are interchangeable). Brehm gives us a taste of that everything in images ranging from jasmine blossoms placed beside the bed to perfume the dreamer's sleep, to a brain bathed in sea salt and lavender. These collected lines hang in the air like the spider's web described in Brehm's poem Design : 'knowing / just how / much to give / in either / direction / without breaking.' Dharma Talk is full of wonders." --Danusha Laméris , author of Bonfire Opera.