loudest when startled

The poems in loudest when startled, luna rey hall’s debut collection, explore the ways in which gun violence has become part of the fundamental nature of relationships, family, and American masculinity—so much so that the bullet has been rendered benign, just another news story, just another obituary, just another walk down the street. The poetry in loudest when startled follows two brothers born into gun culture as they navigate their relationship to anger, loss, and guns in entirely different ways with different outcomes yet leaving us with a sense that we are all both predator and prey.