Dylan Brennan's Poetry under the Spotlight: "Let the Dead"
Dylan Brennan's latest collection of poetry, Let the Dead, is now available from Banshee Press. This second collection by the poet, who divides his time between Mexico and Ireland, delves into themes of mortality, memory, trauma, and the uncanny.
The poems in Let the Dead are set against landscapes that are both real and imagined, where things have a tendency to grow. From the beige and purple clover blossoms to the ribwort plantain, a wildflower once used to bring back the dead, the collection's vivid imagery evokes a sense of life's alchemical processes.
One of the standout pieces, "(not) after the Popol Vuh," contains five attempts to create a human, each resulting in failure. In the fourth attempt, a son is created using wildflowers and he lives and grows. Another poem, "Bog Cotton," describes a walk where the speaker picks bog cotton, disrupting its anemophilous potential, and later finds dried flowers spilling from their wallet in a tiny apartment on the other side of the Atlantic.
The collection grapples with the hauntings of the past, both personal and historical, and reflects on how death and loss shape identity and experience. Ghostly presences, decay, and domestic spaces imbued with emotional resonance are recurring motifs. The tension between the living and the dead is palpable, as seen in poems like the one that mentions encroaching rectangles of development, suggesting urbanization or construction, and laments that wildflowers are giving way to them.
Brennan's poetic style tends toward lyrical intensity, using vivid imagery and sometimes surreal or eerie atmospheres to evoke these concerns. The collection also explores dark meditations on Ireland and Mexico's shared colonial past, as hinted in poems like those that reference the Ireland Chair of Poetry Bursary award and the Christmas cactus.
For a detailed thematic analysis, consulting the collection or literary reviews focused on Let the Dead would be best. However, without direct citations from the search results, this summary is based on an understanding of Brennan’s work in literary contexts.
In the first attempt, a small person made of mud was created but it couldn't move or think. In the second attempt, a wooden effigy was made and given words, but it stopped moving and its face dried up. These early failures serve as a stark reminder of the challenges in creating life and the complexities of human existence.
In the third attempt, no information is provided, leaving readers to ponder what could have transpired. The fourth attempt, as mentioned earlier, results in the creation of a son using wildflowers. The fifth attempt, not mentioned in the initial bullet points, results in the creation of a son using wildflowers, as revealed in the updated version of "(not) after the Popol Vuh."
Let the Dead is a compelling exploration of life, death, and the uncanny, offering readers a unique and thought-provoking journey through Brennan's poetic world.
Books in this collection, Let the Dead, offer a balanced mix of entertainment and profound contemplation on themes like mortality, the uncanny, and life's alchemical processes. The poems, rich with vivid imagery, present urban development as a poignant contrast to the wildflowers, symbolizing the struggle between the living and the dead in a metaphorical sense.
