Brendan McBreen
Brendan McBreen was abandoned in suburbia and raised by men: a kind but patriarchal father and older brothers who mostly had their own lives. Before the divorce, Brendan’s biggest influence was a woman called Mom who was an artist herself and encouraged Brendan’s creativity with Salvador Dali, Vincent van Gogh, and Bob Ross.
In high school, Brendan tried hard to be male, dealt poorly with depression, anxiety, suicidal thoughts, and loneliness. Around this time poetry was discovered, along with denial. After they graduated, they got their black belt in karate and realized the necessity of being true to one’s self. At which point they revisited an old term they previously avoided like the plague: transgender.
While this went on, there was writing, critique circles, workshops taught by poets with impressive bodies of work, attempts at college, counseling, collage art, exploring nature, meditation, dogs, cats, rain, rainbows, rivers, forests, oceans, beaches, 9/11s, 9 hour flights, a book of poetry from MoonPath Press (Cosmic Egg, 2017), Obama, Trump, an occasional really good pizza, a plan to transition from male to female, lacks of money, postponements, bills, tears, laughter, friends, family, and a bunch of other stuff.
Read some of Brendan's poetry online.
Read an interview with Brendan in the Auburn Reporter .
Brendan was featured in the Auburn Poet Spotlight for November 2021.
Brendan Reading from The Memory Of Water
Read a review of The Memory of Water by the Bookmonger, Barbara Lloyd McMichael in Our Coast: Weekend
|
|
|
Poem from The Memory of Water
all through this night
I’m writing a treasure map for you to follow don’t despair I won’t yell or torture you its not a scam I want you to frolic through a pile of leaves feel the empathy of a pleasant pond set up tent on the curve of a crescent moon I want to bestow on you a window seat to wonder diversify the spectrum of forgotten self make the invisible visible the cold warm to send you on a journey under the stars to find a sunbeam and a strong verb to guide you home to your porch and to another dream
|
|
|
|
Poem from Cosmic Egg
I should have been a plumber
—Albert Einstein
unclogging
subatomic particles
encrusted
on the elbow joints
of kitchen sinks
in the drain
dead goldfish
furious hair anemones
a quarter
unknown blue goo
all bouncing
in aquatic Brownian motion
converging
in emptiness
in blackness
compressing
where even light
cannot penetrate
but water knows
and the floor
is wet
