In The Brazen Serpent, among other preoccupations, poems explore how the most basic legends--family stories--fragment and alter in each individual's memory. Ní Chuilleanáin's language is supple and acute enough to undertake its most difficult subject, how we perceive and understand the world, and how we share our worlds in mystery and love. The Brazen Serpent marks yet another advance in the work of a major poet.