DIG by Bryan Borland (Stillhouse Press/George Mason University)
DIG
Author: Bryan Borland
Autographed
7 x 10, die cut cover
Paperback: 86 pages
Publisher: Stillhouse Press (September 16, 2016)
ISBN: 978-0990516989
Published by Stillhouse Press/George Mason University, this is a direct-from-the-author, autographed copy of DIG, a Lambda Literary Finalist in Gay Poetry and a Stonewall Honor Book as selected by the American Library Association.
"Bryan Borland is talking to you and everything is at stake. There’s a lot of ferocity and a little bit of dread just beneath the surface of these quiet lyrics and narratives—but Borland knows how to spin shame and grief into love. These poems phosphoresce tenderness and violence in equal parts like a gentle calamity. Borland does not flinch in the face of grand and devastating forces. 'This is resurrection,' he observes. 'The end of one faith. The beginning of another.' Borland has more than proven his mettle as a man of letters with both his previous work and with his commitments to queer literature as a publisher, and this new collection heralds a powerful maturing of his poetic voice." – Kazim Ali
"Bryan Borland writes of marriage, but the kind of marriage that rattled Blake’s visions—or as Borland puts it, the body 'bored by its own heart so it becomes / the eater of hearts.' Here you’ll find love poems, but the kind few valentines have the courage to write, missives of love as contrary ache, as an exercise in animal need: 'There are hollow places in us / that are hungry. We know the risk / of not having them filled.' DIG is a collection that does what it says it’s going to do—relentlessly, ruthlessly—digging into the body, into the merciless desire of the body, into the ground that gave the body birth and will someday take it back again." – Nickole Brown & Jessica Jacobs
"That most hackneyed of literary genres—the love poem—gets a serious shaking up and makeover in Bryan Borland’s wonderful series of exactly that. There’s an honesty and openness, a willingness to explore dark corners of relationships and the past but also to celebrate the many sides of the sheer joy of being young and together that illuminates every page of DIG. These poems are fresh as tomorrow." – Felice Picano
"In his third book of poems, Bryan Borland wields a deft and lyrical hand, cracks open the heart, and imagines a mind where madness is beautiful and 'everything is instinct.' He chronicles a marriage that is not your mother’s marriage, but that you will recognize as true love. He unflinchingly examines and records the intimacies of our 'human countries,' gifting the reader with poems that are radical, witty, and tender. Be prepared for Borland’s large and unadulteratedly queer vision. Bring a hankie—gold, olive, white, or anything in between." – Denise Duhamel & Maureen Seaton