Pre-Order Brood, the Debut Poetry Collection by Kelly Granito.
5.87" X 8.23"
47 Pages
Kelly Granito is a poet, educator, and naturalist from Ann Arbor, Michigan, where she lives with her husband, kids, cat, and too many plants. Her poetry has been featured in the Emerson Review, Iron Horse Review, the Louisville Review, Burrow Press, Midwestern Gothic, and many other journals.
Advanced Praise for Brood:
In Brood, Kelly Granito’s virtuosic poems crack open the door of a family home into a mother’s wry yet earnest heart as she navigates the all-too-often invisible odyssey of motherhood. When Granito’s
speaker takes on the persona of an editor requesting less Mary Oliver and more elegies for waves of rage you feel as you do the night feedings “we know we are in for unvarnished truth. With precise language and electrifying imagery, Granito’s pieces tackle the nostalgic self-mythology of pre-parenthood years, the inescapable reminders of long-gone traumas and fears reignited by the desire to protect one’s new “brood,” and, ultimately, the difficulty in fusing past selves with a new one. At the same time, the toy trucks in Granito’s verses take on the majesty of Neruda’s tomatoes, a spouse’s yard work ignites lust, and, weaving in and out of the entire collection, an acknowledgment of the transience of childhood provokes perpetual rumination Brood creates a fully authentic, human portrait through this mosaic of the psychic sensations in a mother’s world. A stunning collection you simply cannot miss.
—Brigit Kelly Young is the author of several award-winning books for young adults. Her debut novel, Worth a Thousand Words, was a Junior Library Guild selection as well as a Best Book of 2019 from The Bank Street College of Education. Additionally, Ms. Young has published short fiction and poetry in journals like The North American Review, 2 River View, Eclectica Magazine, and Burrow Press, among others.
In Brood, Kelly Granito masterfully blends vivid nature imagery with complex reflections on motherhood. Hanging traps to kill visually stunning invasive beetles while quietly rooting for their larva to survive, she portrays herself as a morally ambiguous “executioner with paper lanterns,” teaching her children about “the matter of dirty hands.” She intertwines memories of wearing her mother’s gold shoes on “Donna Summer nights” with the everyday act of gathering her children’s scattered shoes while feeling lost at sea—ultimately surrendering to mornings where she must “look at the shoes and choose sharks.” Yet, amid this tension, tiny moments of levity have the power to make “a photon / an inferno” that “calls us in like moths / again / and again.”
—Denise Sedman is an award-winning poet and author of the poetry collection The Past Isn’t Done with Me Yet. She has been published widely in literary journals and anthologies.