Brian Tierney's Rise and Float,
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Brian Tierney's debut poetry collection, Rise and Float—set to come out with Milkweed Editions in February—is a tender and expansive collection that refuses to shy away from the depth of human experience. With a particular focus on the grief that is inextricably tied to living, Tierney showcases his ability to describe even the darkest moments with vibrancy. Poems such as "Migraine," "Greystone Park," and "You’re The One I Wanna Watch the Last Ships Go Down With" highlight Tierney’s talent for depicting even the darkest subjects with poignant vulnerability and precise language. Certainly, this adept control over language permeates each poem, beginning with the opening "Migraine" and continuing on through the collection's entirety: a broke-open rodent like a hammered pomegranate—its head useless, even to birds. It hurts to look at, like blood coughed up in a bathtub. (1) ... My father's hands are rain- damp and smell of corduroy worn too long in the sun (7) ... If I'm dead inside how would I know, how would a bulb check its own filament. (10) ... It's all right, love, that we don't love living. Even actors don't exactly love the spotlight they move through (59) It is no surprise that Rise and Float won Copper Nickel's Jake Adam York Prize. This collection is ripe with descriptions that leave lasting impressions on readers, reminding us that—although we may not always "love living"—amidst our grief, there is still much beauty. ⋆ |
Brian Tierney is the author of Rise and Float, winner of the 2020-21 Jake Adam York Prize (Milkweed, forthcoming Feb. 2022). His poetry and prose have appeared in Paris Review, Kenyon Review, AGNI, NER, The Adroit Journal, and others. A former Wallace Stegner Fellow at Stanford University and a graduate of the Bennington College MFA Writing Seminars, he was named among Narrative Magazine's 2013 "30 Below 30" emerging writers, and is winner of the 2018 George Bogin Memorial Award from The Poetry Society of America. Raised in Philadelphia, he lives in Oakland, Ca., where he teaches poetry at The Writing Salon.
Marissa Ahmadkhani holds an MA in English from Cal Poly SLO and splits her time between the Bay Area and Costa Mesa, CA. Her work has been published or is forthcoming in Southern Indiana Review, the minnesota review, Radar Poetry, and poets.org, where she received the Academy of American Poets Prize in 2015 and 2017. Currently, she is pursuing an MFA at the University of California, Irvine and serves as Assistant Editor of The West Review.
Marissa Ahmadkhani holds an MA in English from Cal Poly SLO and splits her time between the Bay Area and Costa Mesa, CA. Her work has been published or is forthcoming in Southern Indiana Review, the minnesota review, Radar Poetry, and poets.org, where she received the Academy of American Poets Prize in 2015 and 2017. Currently, she is pursuing an MFA at the University of California, Irvine and serves as Assistant Editor of The West Review.