2019 Q3 FEATURED POET: BRENNAN K.A. POLLOCK

the written word. it can so easily be ripped out of the joy, ennui, and misery of everyday life and crammed into dusty paper caskets awaiting analysis by academics and aristocrats alike. ​i desire not to create works which will be raised into lines of vision only available to the surveyors of literary lineages and traditions strangled by privilege and wealth.

what i do desire is to caress the written word with my lived experience and allow the eccentricity of english to become a generous bedfellow, beside the nightstand of countless democratic drawers, each holding rustic etchings and fragrances of youth, sex, liberation, god, and the ever-present possibilities of unfurled joy and revolution. it is this bedfellow who has kept me company for many years and their presence is sweeter than honey.

i feel as if i have been entrusted as a steward of the “word” and “words” and must attend to this particular relationship with the discipline, grace, and rigor one would find in someone like a master lenscrafter. i see words strung together, in any shape or form, to be like a brick: something that can be used to build a foundation or to destroy the stained glass adorning a previously erected structure centuries old. every sentence is a graspable tool begging to be used for healing, excitation, recollection, construction, deconstruction, or organization.

it’s simply because the written word was my savior in a time of abject confusion and suffering that i know it can be a savior, friend or lover to someone else. the written word is simply one aspect of our bodies expressing themselves in the world. to suppress the word within my skin, bones, and organs from being actualized in a visible form would be akin to waging war against myself. as someone who considers whitman to be a dear ancestor i speak the same prophetic utterance over myself on the daily that he did in 1855: that my very flesh will be a great poem. it is because of the written word that i am able to recognize the undeniable beauty within my own flesh and the movements of my body that i have conquered, for the most part, a severe body hatred instilled in me from childhood.

this recognition is smoothly brought back into every word that i write or read. it’s one magnificent cycle of being enraptured and ensnared by the word and words. when the written word was discovered to be a word within my chest violently shaking to dance ecstatically onto a page i knew what it meant to truly be a poet. i was reconciled to myself and given the keys to help re-enchant the world. the truly remarkable thing is this: everyone has this convulsing word within them. maybe we all need to listen to that word within and help it become the word written, spoken, and heard for the life of the world.

POLLOCK’S POEM ‘A BASTARD ROMANCE’

CAN BE FOUND ON P.16 OF THE QUARTERLY.

FULL TEXT OF THE POEM BELOW.

A BASTARD ROMANCE

rip into this flesh with your palms of bone and blood


lay me gently upon the altar of ascension blessed


where i and you shall fly towards union untrod


trampling over all disturbing lights of dominion’s mist



oh sweet communion host me in this bed broken apart


tuck me in with three small motions ancient in their unity


rock me creating something new within my soiled heart


swirling up to reach the eyes of all in sexual simplicity 


christ’s celestial vein pierced on a summers eve


tears dripping unhindered from the hazel eyes of god 


moaning from the pain that we received


a garden blooming once in suffering wrought



upon the cross of our bodies we scratched sacred in spit


I entered the holy of holies like a priest vested bright


my flesh ripped and torn like a curtain finally split


we persisted in sweaty discernment through the ripshorn night

brennan k.a. pollock

brennan k.a. pollock is an aspirant chaplain and professor of philosophy and religion who landed in nashville some three years ago. always dissatisfied by the strictures of institutions he skirted around in his pursuit of pastoral leadership by living in london with vagabonds and socialists of various stripes like himself. as a poet he wants to re-enchant the world, inspire the oppressed to action, and help others see the divine within every pore, motion, and mood.