
/BOOKS









COMING SOON! BROTHERFUL (Sibling Rivalry Press, 2025): Brotherful explores themes of grief, memory, love, and identity, with a central focus on the loss of the poet’s older brother and its lifelong impact. Through lyrical and introspective verse, Bryan Borland navigates the complexities of mourning, sibling bonds, and the ways in which personal loss shapes one's understanding of self and relationships. The poems traverse past and present, reflecting on childhood memories, the search for connection, and the transformative power of art and love. The book also engages with broader themes of queer identity, family lineage, and the persistence of those we’ve lost in the spaces we inhabit. At its heart, Brotherful is a meditation on absence and presence—how love, even after death, continues to shape and guide us. Borland’s work, marked by raw emotional depth and a striking sense of lyricism, invites readers to consider the ways in which they hold onto and honor those who have passed. This collection stands as both an elegy and a celebration, reminding us that the echoes of those we love never fully fade.
CROW IN THE DESERT (Queer Punk Collective, 2025): Written primarily over a week at the Desert Rat Writer's Residency in Palm Desert, California, these poems are another kind of coming-of-age. "Who are you today, Bryan Borland?" asks an early poem in this chapbook. The answers are provocative and sexy, spiritual and adventurous. The collection balances moments of deep introspection with sensuality and desire, exploring the intersection of body, place, and memory. Themes of transformation and renewal emerge through encounters with nature, from crows and hummingbirds to the desert’s shifting light. With its mix of vulnerability and confidence, Crow in the Desert captures the poet’s journey toward self-acceptance and artistic clarity. It is a meditation on love, loss, and the ongoing process of understanding oneself in a world that is both vast and fleeting. Crow in the Desert will be sold exclusively to benefit the Desert Rat Writing Residency, and represents the first publication in Queer Punk Collective, an imprint of Sibling Rivalry Press created in response to the (dis)order of America in 2025. Buy from the Desert Rat Writing Residency.
TOURIST (Sibling Rivalry Press, 2018): In the fall of 2016, Bryan Borland embarked on a book tour across the United States that was set against a divisive presidential campaign, an explosion in New York, a historic World Series, the largest poetry event on the continent, and a maturing relationship at home. These poems capture the spirit of movement, both literal and emotional, turning each moment of pause into a reckoning. Tourist chronicles American life in all its beauty and terror, city by city and poem by poem, and navigates the many ways we become tourists in our own lives through love, fear, and sheer wonder. Buy at Sibling Rivalry Press.
DIG (Stillhouse Press, 2016): Bryan Borland’s third poetry collection examines what it means to dig—to undertake the intense labor of unearthing the personal / political / artistic self and embracing the consequences of that knowledge. The poet recognizes that “[t]he world needs another love poem / like it needs blood in the throat,” yet seeks to commune with the sanctity of flesh, offering the language of his body. These poems assert that to dig is to reveal the bedrock on which we may rebuild ourselves; to discover the beauty and reward of life buried deep within us—no matter how many layers of earth we need to overturn. DIG was a finalist for the Lambda Literary Award in Gay Poetry and a Stonewall Honor Book in Literature as selected by the American Library Association. Buy at Stillhouse Press.
LESS FORTUNATE PIRATES: Poems from the First Year Without My Father (Sibling Rivalry Press, 2012): On December 10, 2009, Bryan Borland’s father gave him $1,000 to publish his first book, My Life as Adam. With that gift, Sibling Rivalry Press was born. Ten days later, Bryan’s father was killed when his vehicle left a one-lane bridge and plunged into a lake. These poems are a road map, through grief, to love. Buy at Sibling Rivalry Press.
MY LIFE AS ADAM (Sibling Rivalry Press, 2010): Poems touching on religion, sexuality, Southern life, and self-acceptance reveal the poet’s growing up, coming out, and becoming an adult in all its joys and sorrows. My Life as Adam is Bryan Borland’s full-length debut and was included as one of only five collections of poetry on the American Library Association’s inaugural “Over the Rainbow” list of best LGBT books of 2010. Buy at Sibling Rivalry Press.
JOY EXHAUSTIBLE: Assaracus Presents The Publishers (as Co-Editor, Sibling Rivalry Press, 2014): Assaracus: A Journal of Gay Poetry presents Joy Exhaustible is a look at the work, through poetry, prose, and memoir, of both contemporary and history-making gay publishers and editors. Joy Exhaustible features work by James Mitchell, John Lauritsen, Donald Weise, William Johnson, Michael Hathaway, Felice Picano, Steve Berman, Ian Young, Charlie Bondhus, Ron Mohring, Kirby Congdon, Charles Flowers, Perry Brass, John Stahle, Jameson Currier, Lawrence Schimel, and a cover poem by Paul Mariah. It is edited by Bryan Borland and Seth Pennington, publishers of Sibling Rivalry Press, who also contribute their first collaborative poem. This anthology, which doubles as issue 14 of the journal, tells the story of the small gay press in North America and the publishers behind the scenes whose love of writing changed the geography of gay literature. This title was included on the American Library Association's "Over the Rainbow" list of recommended reading for 2015. Buy at Sibling Rivalry Press.
LADY BUSINESS: A Celebration of Lesbian Poetry (as Editor, Sibling Rivalry Press, 2012): Lady Business features a substantial set of poems from each of twelve lesbian poets: Sally Bellerose, Brit Blalock, Cassandra Christenson, Marty Correia, Teresa De La Cruz, Julie R. Enszer, Gina R. Evers, Andy Izenson, Ronna Magy, Mary Meriam, Maureen Seaton, and Jan Steckel. Lady Business features cover art by Bil Donovan. This title was included on the American Library Association's "Over the Rainbow" list of recommended reading for 2013. Buy at Sibling Rivalry Press.
ASSARACUS: A Journal of Gay Poetry (as Founding Editor, Sibling Rivalry Press, 2011-2016): Assaracus was a literary journal featuring poetry by self-identified gay men. Named for the earth-bound brother of Ganymede, the youth swooped up by Zeus’ eagle to serve the god, Assaracus was published four times each year between 2011 and 2016. Library Journal named Assaracus a "Best New Magazine of the Year" for 2011 and said, "Sibling Rivalry Press is publishing well-wrought, challenging literature that provides deep insight into the broad range of emotional experiences of being gay." Get back issues here.
INDIVIDUAL POEMS AND ESSAYS have appeared in: The Advocate; Amsterdam Quarterly; Arkansas Times; Between: New Gay Poetry; Burning House Press; Children of Grass: A Portrait of American Poetry; Chiron Review; Court Green; Divining Divas: 100 Gay Poets on Their Muses; Foglifter; The Foliate Oak; Ganymede; The Gay & Lesbian Review Worldwide; gard (Turkey); Glass; The Good Men Project; Glitterwolf; Impossible Archetype; Lovejets: Queer Male Poets on 100 Years of Walt Whitman; Mollyhouse; The Nervous Breakdown; OCHO; Oxford American; Reading Queer: Poetry in a Time of Chaos; RHINO; Soloneba (Russia); Weave Magazine; What Things Cost: An Anthology for the People; WILDE Magazine; and other anthologies, literary magazines and websites, journals, and newspapers. Bryan also wrote the introduction to Michael Hathaway's Postmarked Home: New and Selected Poems 1979 - 2019.