Reel

“I didn’t mean to be at this party,” writes Colleen O’Brien in Reel, as the reader realizes they too have been absorbed into a spirited, spinning acceleration. In this mesmerizing debut collection of poetry, O’Brien’s shattering sonic sensibility tethers us to the material world via humor while a vibrant commitment to expansive precision moves us “closer farther.” The poems in Reel occupy a liquid, naturalistic desire for language play with Modernist-influenced winks of resistance to absolute cohesion. O’Brien’s wry, sly, kaleidoscopic lines turn mid-word toward surprise, exacting a powerful attention to too-often overlooked beings and images: stones, peas, pearls, rhymes, animals, children. Here is an oblique yet deeply relational poetics: vulnerable, alert, observant.

Author: Colleen O’Brien
Binding Type: Paperback
Publisher: Cleveland State University Poetry Center
Published: 10/07/2025
Pages: 84
Weight: 0.27lbs
Size: 8.04h x 5.61w x 0.27d
ISBN: 9798989708437
Language: English