The thing that remains is the knowledge that there is another me, who I do not control, who has the ability to take over my body. There is so much about myself that I will never know.
Fiction — Circuit in Sybil Journal
Fiction — Jumping Out Of Car Practice in Unstamatic Journal
Air whooshed into the car when Brian opened the passenger side door of my ’96 Ford Taurus and stuck his Doc Marten boot out above the moving pavement. Brian’s Doc Martens were hand-me-downs, scuffed and cracked and almost grey with age, the yellow laces laced all the way up and wrapped several times before being tied around Brian’s skinny leg just above the ankle, his cuffed jeans lifting as he stretched one leg out of the door.
Oregon ArtsWatch — Cultural Landscape Part 11
The Cultural Landscape: Part 11
K.B. Dixon’s cultural-portrait series continues with visual artist Marie Watt, classical percussionist Niel DePonte, dancer & choreographer Oluyinka Akinjiola, poet & storyteller Brian S. Ellis, and actor & Portland Revels leader Lauren Bloom Hanover.
OCTOBER 2, 2023
Interview — Abandon Journal Issue #4
An Interview With Brian S. Ellis
by Kimberly Sheridan
October 19, 2022
The poetry of Brian S. Ellis unravels, inverts, investigates, and complicates. His poems are radical koans and invitations to forego common narratives. In a review of Yesterday Won’t Goodbye, Jeanann Verlee writes, “His poems speak with an unbridled urgency yet come to you patient, coy, brimming with wisdom—and acutely aware of their own necessity.”
Fiction — Security in COUNTERCLOCK Journal
Hamish lived on the opposite side of the country from his family, but he had never been on an airplane, he had moved by train. He was a romantic, but this time, there was urgency; his grandfather had died. So Hamish called the airplane company to purchase a ticket which he was told would be at the counter when he went. The airport was so much bigger than Hamish knew.
Interview — Oregon ArtsWatch
Poet’s Q&A: Brian S. Ellis talks slam poetry, storytelling, and branching toward prose
The Portland poet sees his classroom role as more coach than teacher: “I am very good at pumping people up, listening, and helping them execute their vision…. I’m not hitting people with maxims to live by.”
DECEMBER 27, 2021
Book – Against Common Sense
Limit Zero Publications (2023)
Against Common Sense is a collection of poems. Against Common Sense is a collection of poems that thinks that complexity is a form of accuracy—which is to say, a form of honesty—and that simplicity itself is not a virtue; in fact, simplicity has been used many times as a form of violence. The poems in Against Common Sense do not think that there is a type of knowledge that a person can obtain that detracts from said person’s overall ability to think: this is the theory that is invoked when common sense is employed; that it is possible somehow that learning can separate us from ourselves; that learning is a dangerous activity that will leave us with less information than we began with. Against Common Sense is a collection of poems, it is hoped, that thinks. Against Common Sense is a collection of poems.
Book – Pretty Much the Last Hardcore Kid in This Town
Alien Buddha Press (2023)
Pretty Much the Last Hardcore Kid in This Town is a series of interconnected short stories that blur the lines of perspective and identity. Focusing on the same collective of punk rock kids living in the early 2000s New England, each story contains shifts in status, power and self, as characters swap names and personalities, both literal and metaphysical.
Storytelling Video
Book – Often Go Awry
University of Hell Press (2015)
Often Go Awry is a collection of poems upturned. The book works its way from the center outward, while the poems themselves examine the meaning of unraveling. The styles vary greatly, but all of the pieces in this collection insist upon attacking determinism in one form or another.
This is the fourth book of poetry from author Brian S. Ellis, but it is his first collection of poems written in his present voice. While he continues with the same obsessions that have pervaded all of his work, this is more fully in the now than he has ever been.
“I’ll meet you there. / Where everything is, / we will be.”
Book – American Dust Revisited
University of Hell Press (2013)
American Dust Revisited was nine thousand miles in the making. Author Brian S. Ellis traveled to and through nearly every physical and mental state in America, breathing in the dusty experience and coughing up his unique perspective. Ellis shared his life and words with people of all walks along the way, each step a contribution to this, his third collection, the most expansive and explosive yet.
Ellis is a lyrical and authentic storyteller. In this variegated voyage, he explores the elements that drive us, and those we drive ourselves. He illuminates the forces at work in and around us, prompting us to audit our own choices. What and when become far more relevant in the context of how and why.
Ellis redefines the distance between here and there, between past and present, between them and you.
Poem – Since We Moved to the Moon
“Since We Moved to the Moon,” from Yesterday Won’t Goodbye (Write Bloody Press)
Poem – The God of Gift Certificates
“The God of Gift Certificates,” from American Dust Revisited (University of Hell Press)
Book – Uncontrolled Experiments in Freedom
Write Bloody Press (2008)
Uncontrolled Experiments In Freedom is a poetically manic and shimmering account of the life of Brian Stephen Ellis. His words shiver, rant and constantly threaten to fall apart under the weight of their own gravity. His narratives come from and carry the images of a world where many believe no poetry to exist. His voice is a second-hand microscope examining the fuzzy science of survival. Ellis’ colorful voice is a strong addition to the Boston spoken word tradition.
Book – Yesterday Won’t Goodbye
Write Bloody Press (2011)
“Brian S. Ellis’ second book, Yesterday Won’t Goodbye, explores the author’s wild origins and punk rock Americana in powerful poetic form. Brian Stephen Ellis is borne of Gelfling and gutter punk. Unwashable stain …His poems speak with an unbridled urgency yet come to you patient, coy, brimming with wisdom-and acutely aware of their own necessity. Read these poems. You’ve never been so alive.” -Jeanann Verlee, “Racing Hummingbirds”