The poems in J. Scott Brownlee's first full-length collection,
Requiem for Used Ignition Cap
, explore the rural landscape and residents of Brownlee's native Llano, Texas. Brownlee might be considered a natural mystic, refusing to settle for the simplistic ideological framework offered by his religious heritage, but rather finding in the particulars of place the vehicles of transcendence. Drawn into the local by these poems, the reader finds much that proves universal.