Tall Tales by Briahn Kelly-Brennan

 

Briahn Kelly-Brennan is a poet who understands how the beauty of language swerves into meaning, how shadows can re-shape what we know, how sound can be an undertone to shift moments into awareness. Her poetry is like water moving over wide intricate stones—it ripples, pools and reflects. Her world is a carefully observed one, no word misplaced, no opportunity missed to unroll the gorgeous matter of existence or probe the mute and unfamiliar dark.

 

Her poems are brimming with lively, original language: “crushed scent prowls up her paws,” “the slow light of a low hanging sun.”

 

She uses syntax in unusual ways to shape new thoughts or resurrect familiar feelings:

 

“the light is so different anymore,” “afternoons always sound so warm,” “leaves rustle the breeze.” “Sunrays fill and fill a rabble of buds to overflowering.”

 

Oh and the word play: “sedimental seabeds,” “Telos springs from umbel origins,”

 

“…you know that all fish are well schooled.”

 

Poetic revelations flow lovely and melodious throughout her work.

–Margaret Rooney, Poet

 

 

Briahn Kelly-Brennan flings a wide net as she captures a world as intricate as the “mycelium network” of a carrot to the boisterous “day long strut” of a hen. She is a master of rhythm and sound. She hypnotizes us with a musicality and repetition so subtle that we are scarcely aware of how far we’ve traveled until we reach the end of the poem. This is a collection that boldly challenges our assumptions and perceptions. We read “as if nothing happened/ and really nothing happened/ But what was that;” and we turn in wonder at our own immersion and transformation.

–Jean Wong, Poet

 

A fine artist and masterful poet, Briahn’s Tall Tales’ Giraffe cover signals whats in store for her lucky readers. From The Big Bang’s breezy prose featuring exhilarating dialogue like “the paw print of soil tuned to the moon”,  to her Fish Schticks comedy in motion where she evokes laughter and fun, the reader is gifted with Briahn’s combined artistic skills. Love is seen as “that time we wrapped the warm day around us” via Memory Bin II. Sheer genius is illustrated  through her use of words that bring sound to life in Shastina where creatures create earth’s evolution. Doran Beach “where crabs crawl sideways and fish crawl sidewise” also exemplifies Brian’s mastery of words:  “one sees the beach, feels the bubbles pock the water.”  Like her All Along the Serious Day, Tall Tales enables us to drink at least a poem a day.

–Alicia Schooler Hugg,  Author Harvesting Miracles, Solace for the Soul