Bryan Borland
February 16, 2013
BOSTON, HERE WE COME
Seth and I will be bringing SRP to the annual AWP conference in Boston from March 6 – March 9. We will have a table (easy to remember: K-9), and I’ll be hosting a portion of the big Queertopia reading on Thursday, March 7:
Address: Moonshine Room of Club Cafe
209 Columbus Ave Boston, MA 02116
(617) 536-0966
Website of Location: http://www.clubcafe.com/banquets-catering/
The Sibling Rivalry Press portion of the event begins at 5:00 PM. The entire reading runs from 4:00 – 8:00 PM.
Seth will be reading, along with Jessie Carty, Raymond Luczak, Julie Enszer, Kevin Simmonds, Valerie Wetlaufer, Matthew Hittinger, Nicolas Destino, Saeed Jones, and Michael Klein. What a fantastic, diverse lineup! I’m so proud of SRP and what we’ve grown into.
In addition to hearing and reading some damn fine poetry, you’ll probably get to see me do things like give Seth piggyback rides, too. (See below. Yeah, I’m nauseatingly in love.)
On the writing front, new work has been accepted by Rhino and Amsterdam Quarterly. I’ve also seen my poetic style evolve thanks to intense poetry study sessions with Seth. Through these, I’ve become enamored with the poetry of Adrienne Rich, which is really influencing my own work as late. Hope to share some new poems soon.
Love, love, love.
January 11, 2013
Pacific Coast New Year’s Poem
I want to be old with you here read the paper.
grumble about politics and the weather
offer crumpled sections of the Chronicle
to young men from the hostel I want
to know cops by their first names know when
the pastries are fresh and the women aren’t
I want to have our own crooked patio full
of plants we’d never seen before California
I want to die first here after a full life
because I’d know these streets would hold you
steady because I’d know you’d see the bay
and remember the night we chose fire over fireworks
us doing our familiar dance jazz and you
falling asleep in the bend of my arm
this was where we lived
anywhere was where we lived.
- Journal Entry
1 January 2013
Caffe Trieste
San Francisco, California
October 13, 2012
LFP Featured by Small Press Distribution
Much gratitude to Small Press Distribution for featuring Less Fortunate Pirates on their list of new & forthcoming titles. LFP is now available for pre-order all over the place: Our official SRP bookstore (order from here and your copy will be signed), Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and, of course, Small Press Distribution, who I encourage you to support. You can also refer your local bookstores and libraries to Small Press Distribution in order to have them carry LFP – which would make me a happy boy. This book, more than anything I’ve written, speaks to such a large audience. We’ve all grieved in one way or another. We’ve all lost someone we’ve loved deeply, be it to death or metaphor. Less Fortunate Pirates is a roadmap to surviving the first year after a loss. To finding hope again. The more I read these poems to audiences, the more I understand my role and why I had to write this book. It was for my father. It was for my mother. It was for me. But now I see it was for you, too. Whoever you are. And especially if you or someone you know has struggled with the loss of a father – reach out to me and let me know. I want you – or that person – to have a copy of Pirates. It’s why I wrote this book. It’s not about money to me. It’s not about making a profit. It’s about getting these poems into hands that need them.
Sooner or later, we all become pirates.
If you’re in Arkansas, don’t miss the official launch of Less Fortunate Pirates - 6:00 PM on Tuesday, November 13, 2012, at the Arkansas Arts Center, 501 East 9th Street, Little Rock, AR 72202, (501) 372-4000. Not only will Theresa Davis be performing – but you’re also going to hear a poem from Pirates like you’ve never heard one of my poems before. If you’re local, please help me spread the word about the launch. The Arts Center is doing me a huge favor by hosting the launch and I’d love to have a great turnout to repay their generosity.
Love, love, love folks.
September 11, 2012
Sledgehammer Sestina: A Love Story
For Seth. And for me.
February – you sit in the church parking lot, finger golden
lettering on your childhood bible, come alone again, tussle
nerves, open door, step out, pavement lightning
when feet hit asphalt, flip the switch, fake smile, lucky
to have practiced this act before, nod to Preacher, Brother
Kevin, keep repeating: God is love. God is love. God is love.
March is a sick lion, strangers’ germs, deceptive love
and a cough you can’t shake, so you daydream: Golden
Gate Bridge, Six Gallery, Ginsberg thought of his brother
and read “Howl” in public for the first time. The tussle
of ten years, the safety of secrets prolong illusions of lucky
stagnation, but there are cracks. Another boy glows: distant lightning.
April doesn’t bring rain, not like it should, as if lightning
and thunder, downpours and spring storms are reserved for love
and pain of summer, as if the grass, teased only with dew, is lucky
in its brittle and thirsty green, in its slow fade to washed-out golden,
then brown. You lock the bathroom door to prevent burdens of tussle
and sway, books stacked high, missing home, father, brother.
May ends in beginnings. Another parking lot, more nerves, Brother,
do you have a dollar? asks a man on the street, the lightning
of empathy hits so you give three. It’s the simple, brilliant tussle
of an idea, the smile imprinted, his glasses, the evident love
of poetry, the poetry of possibility like a blank page (golden).
Ask and he’ll say yes your gut tells you. Could you be so lucky?
June is three decades long. You fall this month, that lucky
accident of arms and ass, blue shorts you lend that fit, you brother
him, tell him so while every pulse through vein and brain is golden
and aches for more. You see a band, ask Are You Lightning?
but know the answer, swallow beer, drive home, wipe vomit, love
vomit because it came from him. You keep silent, this tussle.
July is when the gods turn angry. You allow yourself only a tussle
of his curly hair. You drink his eyes. You think yourself lucky.
You swim together. He climbs onto you. You stiffen, breathe, love.
You put your hands on his shoulders, hold him. You call him brother
when, really, you want to kiss him. The marriage ends in lightning
and thunder and that long-awaited downpour. Nothing’s golden.
August stretches the tussle of longing. Cain and Abel’s brother
war turns mutual confession, lucky circumstance, and lightning:
You’ve both waited. You finally kiss him. The moon is golden.
© Bryan Borland
August 28, 2012
Socks
No more metaphor,
your socks are your socks,
your socks in my pocket,
just as simple and sweet as that.
