“For Stewart, this is what poetic process is: the closely observed emergence of empirical knowledge out of chaos, confusion, darkness. . . . Bramble is the first of Stewart’s collections to deal directly with personal suffering, and to grapple with the question of whether suffering is an unavoidable part of self-knowledge. The bramble isn’t an uncomplicated metaphor: its prickliness is usually paired with a countervailing sweetness, the blackberry or the rose (Stewart also draws on the word ‘briar’ and its associations). . . . Stewart is interested not just in the natural metaphor, but in the meanings that other writers have attributed to it.”