Category: Books

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.

 

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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.

 

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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.”

 

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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.

 

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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.

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”