RaveThe Colorado ReviewThe book’s five sections traverse suicide, nostalgia, grief, gratitude, and the turbulent personal interior—all while maintaining a reverence for the customary details of existence ... is, if anything, a testament to Brian Tierney’s mastery of diction and form. Like migraines, he possesses the galvanizing and mind-twisting ability to transform our perceptions, as well as our ideas surrounding those perceptions ... Tierney shows that the lowest points of human experience also prompt us to view the world in a new light, implying that an unfamiliar but authentic vibrance may be an unintended aftereffect of anxiety, depression, loss, or suffering. At other times, though, his poems can be jarringly straightforward ... Tierney takes a humane approach and tenderly guides his readers toward a settlement with ever-present grief.
