Andrew Brenza’s poetry focuses on the creation of intellectual and emotional transformations through the radical reconfiguration of page space and fundamental alterations of conventional syntactic and semantic structures. His work has appeared in many online and print journals, selections of which are listed below.
Books:
Automatic Souls (Timglaset Editions, 2020)
Description:
With two quotes from John Cage (“Nothing more than nothing can be said.”) and Samuel Beckett (“I can’t go on, I’ll go on.”) as starting points Andrew Brenza has created a narrative sequence of visual poems that “reveal the hidden tragedies in our typefaces” (derek beaulieu). Composed entirely from the Bauhaus font Automatic Souls is populated by sad, mechanistic creatures, trapped in a “weaponized meat machine” (Michael Sikkema). Below and sometimes embedded in the visuals is text, captions that suggest “an expression of the delusion of meaning.”
From Brenza’s afterword: “The characters in this world did not ask for their predicaments. They did not ask for the nature of their compositions. Yet they respond to those predicaments given the nature of their compositions. This is how it goes in the half-light of a fading free will.”
Automatic Souls is a chilling reminder of the predicament of the soul as we enter the 2020s.
Perfect bound, A5 format, 72 pages, colour cover, black & white inside. Edition limited to 99 copies.
Reviews:
- Read SD Bentley’s review in Entropy Magazine.
- Read Dan Power’s review in Spam.
- Read Ethan Vilu’s review in NōD Magazine.
Ordering:
Alphabeticon & Other Poems (Redfoxpress, 2020)
Description:
Visual poetry, A6 format – 44 pages – laser printing. Thread and quarter cloth binding.
Ordering:
Album, in Concrete (Alien Buddha Press, 2019)
Description:
Album, in Concrete is a book of visual poems that explores possible visual representations of melody in specific keys/letters. It is loosely constrained by the number of octaves available on a standard piano keyboard.
Ordering:
Gossamer Lid (Trembling Pillow Press, 2016)
Davy Knittle reviews Gossamer Lid in American Microreviews
Praise for Gossamer Lid:
“Define the constellations. Fly to them on wings that, though so-named, are much more solid than gossamer. Add commentary to & on—sometimes directly relevant, sometimes provoked or stimulated by, sometimes tablet wor(l)dplay, sometimes the ranting of a wordsmith howling at the moons that there weren’t enough words in the language & he’s sometimes had to make more up. Gossamer Lid is both a gnostic gospel for the 21st century & an alchemist or chiromancer’s journal. The entire is a book of poetry that is wide-ranging, brilliantly integrated, oft-times demanding in the reading of it. But well worth that reading. & you’ll never see the night sky in the same way again.” — Mark Young
“The poet Paul Celan changed his German when it sought to eradicate him. In parallel, Andrew Brenza constructs tongue-twisting portmanteaus and neologisms because English refuses to register the environmental eradication (the ‘horrorscope’) to come. Gossamer Lid asks us to approach the earth from a new angle. Concrete poetry meets the poetics of hard science in this necessary constellation of ‘striploss sunbliss.'” — Jena Osman
“Andrew Brenza’s gift splays gossamer and gusto via aptly architected and sonically potent language that recasts its role into a fundament that morphs beyond what was thought possible. I am stunned by the exquisite recreation of what syllables can do together, what visual dimensions resonate far beyond page-bound depictions of their own miraculous being. This is poetry that confronts the curious reality of how small our species is with the largest picture that we stretch to know. Concurrently, we discover an immensely robust life force in Brenza’s mind, defying all suspicion of our collective insignificance! Do not miss this book. It is extraordinary.” — Sheila E. Murphy
Ordering:
Chapbooks:
Poems in C (Viktlösheten Press, 2019)
A Triptych of Andrews (The Blasted Tree, 2019)
Bitter Almonds & Mown Grass (Shirt Pocket Press, 2018)
waterlight (Simulacrum Press, 2018)
an excerpt from Alphabeticon (No Press, 2018)
8 Constellations (Beard of Bees, 2017)
And Then (Grey Book Press, 2016)
21 Skies (Shirt Pocket Press, 2015)
Journals and Magazines:
- “Mirror, Image & Mirage” published in Unlikely Stories
- “5 Visual Poems” published in The Abandoned Playground
- “poems in g” published in Dream Pop Magazine
- “poems in f” published in X-Peri
- “Four Works” published in Utsanga
- “I attack you for using the techniques which I am now using to attack you” published in Diagram 19.5
- “Five Works” published in Five:2:One
- “starlight over the graves” published in Otoliths Issue 48
- “This” and “Heart Song” published in Deluge No. 9
- Weekly feature in Potluck Magazine:
- Day one – “blue lobsters/your eyes“
- Day two – “commute/commute“
- Day three – “mind flank/a tree“
- Day four – “weed eater/flay“
- Day five – “round/plain“
- “Poem Titled II” published in Moss Trill
- “catbird/everything you see,” “horizon/no horizon,” and “a part/apart” published in E·ratio, # 23
- “bay/scene” and “road/trip” published in Pith, Issue 5
- “Canis Major,” “Taurus,” “Corona Borealis” and “Aries” published in Word For/Word, vol. 29
- “Spool” published in Otoliths, Issue 41
- “Rock Gardens” published in Infinity’s Kitchen, # 8
- “Ambient in its Articulation” published in Yellow Field
- “Hercules” published in Fact-Simile 11
- “Now,” “Song and Dance,” and “The Certainty of Things” published in Beloit Poetry Journal, Vol. 66, No. 2
- “Hydrus” and “Sextans in Norma” published in Salt Hill, Issue 35
- “Aquarius,” “Monoceros,” and “Capricornus” forthcoming from Mad Hatters’ Annual Review
- “Cepheus” and “Cancer” published in and/or, Vol. 5
- “Virgo” published in Sugar Mule, # 49
- “Gossamers 6, 19, and 27” published in ‘Pider IV
- “from The Book of Scales,” “Hydra,” “Sculptor,” and “Scorpius” published in
S/WORD, Issue 5 - “Pyxis” published in Sink Review, Issue 13
- “If Flowers” published in Indefinite Space
- “The Detail” and “Gardens of Evening” published in The Cortland Review, Issue 63
- “Columbia and Caelum,” “Pisces,” “Vela,” and “Lacerta” published in Otoliths, Issue 34
- “Gossamer 24” published in Mad Hat
- “The Detail (14)” and “The Detail (15)” published in Otoliths, Issue 32
- “5 Concrete Poems” published in Word For/Word, Vol. 23
- “The Blank of Want” published in Shampoo, Issue 41
- “Daily Rounds” published in Prick of the Spindle, Vol. 7.4
- “The Endings of Otherwise Good Poems” published in Shampoo Poetry, Issue 20
- “Birds” and “Birds and Bugs” published in Shampoo Poetry, Issue 25
- “Gossamer 1” published in The Scrambler, Issue 30
- “Gossamers 2, 21, and 26” published in GlitterPony, Issue 11
- “Gossamer 5” published in REM Magazine
- “Gossamer 9” and “cichlid geometry as the reticulation of desire” published in Jellyfish Magazine, Issue 4
- “Gossamers 14, 15, and 28” published in Infinity’s Kitchen, Issue 6
- “Gossamers 16, 17, 18, and 22” published in Sawbuck, Issue 4.1
- “Gossamers 7, 20, and 23” published in and/or, Vol. 3
- “Gossamers 3 and 25” published in Chronogram
- “The Acorn” published in Nuthouse 52
- “my father as a sonnet on the human meaning of inhuman stars” published in Strange Horizons
- “The Coop” published in Chronogram
