"Taking The Occasion" is a collection based around subtlety. Though rhymed and metered, the meter isn't strict and the rhymes are unobtrusive - they function solely to make the poems sound pleasing and flowing when read out loud, as they should. The majority of the poems are based around some small epiphany, observation or hypothetical scenario, but directed towards some larger idea - a note on feeling self-conscious on the bus nods towards the virtues of commitment, and a musing on dating an extremely tall woman ends with the lines "What is there for a pair so disparate / In something but to be at ease with it?".

The banality of these poems is their strength. A poem about reentering a room you just left or meeting a far-from-humble math whiz have an above-average shot at changing your life, in their small way, because they reflect experiences you most likely have had, and Daniel Brown does well with them by being much more insightful than most.

For a taste, the best poem of the collection, "The Birth of God" is on, of all places, Genius.