S. Collier Brown

from “The Tetrahedral Kites” [Read entire poem in DIAGRAM 21.4]

I. Alexander Graham Bell & the Preoccupation

     By noon, the winds fail. The lull
     will mean experiments like this 
     will have to wait. We'll have our tea
     and talk of nothing, just to pass

     the time. I'll say, I know exactly
     what you mean. But I am here
     and not here too. I see outside
     a shape that's missing from the air

     that is my shape, or my misuse
     of sight, since nothing like a world
     appears. There's just a kite. I mean
     for me, there's nothing as controlled

     or real. Dreams, you say. Yes, and strong. 
     You think I'm lost. You are not wrong.

More online samples: “Brother” [Cortland Review] / “Demolition” [Terrain.org] / “Real Estate” [Unsplendid]

Full Length & Limited Editions

Adger (2022)

Adger Cowans is an artist with an elated interior, and it was a stroke of luck for me that Cowans and Steve Albahari recorded a series of interviews in which that elation broke free of the conversation. Phrases like “the ethers,” “all that dancing,” “possessed,” “makes visible,” “shooting stars,” and “imbue my spirit” took on a meaning all their own, detached and intriguingly cohesive. This poetic improvisation—this jazz—makes Cowans’ art what it is.

That’s why I decided to translate those interviews into erasure poems for this book. Erasure poems are about discovery and reclamation. They sift the grit of everyday life for gems overlooked. That’s what Cowans’ photography does. —Collier Brown, Editor & Poet (Click here for more info.)

Eye, Thus Far, Unplucked (2017)

Boondoggle

In the glee roulade 
of loud tree frogs,
the swat of hot rain
running puddles up 
the sun, June bugs
crack the catafalque
of dusk, crickets
cast black reticules.

What was fishing line
and orange cork
dangles from the dead
tree limbs—lanyards
of a missed intent,
many of them mine,
except once made
they catch blue glass,
bottle caps, bright tin,
beginning gifts
for no good reason.

La Langue Verte (2016)

Beth Moon / Photographs
and S. Collier Brown / Poem

Editor: Alexander Scholz
Book with 20 original
photographs (pigment prints)

Limited to 300 signed
and numbered copies.

To the Wheatlight of June (2013)

Photographs by Ben Nixon
Poems by S. Collier Brown
Introduction by John Wood
Edition: 50 sets
10 silver gelatin photographs 16 x 20 inches
13 x 10 inch letterpress 10 platinum prints
Handcrafted in New England

Moth and Bonelight (2010)

Photographs by Jerry Uelsmann
Poems by S. Collier Brown
Introduction by John Wood
Handcrafted in New England

The Silver Edition: 20 numbered and 5 lettered copies
10 removable 20 x 16 inch signed silver gelatin prints
24 x 20 inch aluminum binding by Daniel Kelm

The Platinum Edition: 55 numbered and 15 lettered copies
10 tipped-in platinum prints, roughly 12 x 9 inches mounted to 18 x 14 inches