... nothing short of exquisite. Laid bare in these pages is a map of holes that reveal pain and death, as the question of whether or not to continue on in the face of suffering is illuminated. Tierney serves as a sort of backwards prophet of dark visions inviting us to experience past and present realities of illness and grief. We witness not just his memories, but also those that he has borrowed from others ... Don’t be fooled by this volume’s slim size (yes, even for a book of poetry, it appears meager in its 80 pages): these poems are intimate and unyielding. Rise and Float is rife with the ghosts of Tierney’s experiences, ancestors, and friends—those that are gone but are still very present in the author’s mind and, now, on the page ... Because of Tierney’s consistent eloquence and penchant for smart, compelling rhythm, reading Rise and Float is a fluid, albeit dark, journey, perhaps not unlike what it feels like to travel through a wormhole or some strange dream ... Tierney doesn’t draw clear distinctions between physical or emotional afflictions, or what is memory and what is present reality, which makes this such a refreshing collection. We tend to overcomplicate things, asking for proof, examining criteria for a diagnosis, doubting people’s experience of reality. Perhaps, Tierney seems to suggest, pain is pain, and the question of whether to continue on in the face of suffering is universal, though lived out in different ways. If you venture deep enough into these poems, intellectually and emotionally, you will see that everything Tierney discusses is just another facet of the same conundrum ... While Tierney catalogs a lineage of pain, he does so with delicacy and finesse. Scenes of death and loss are not bereft of color and life ... Tierney exhibits tremendous care for both his tragic subjects and his craft as he blends the past with the present ... we might be grateful for the way that Tierney so eloquently mapped out strains of suffering in this collection ... Tierney is reestablishing today the reality of shared journeys of grief, suffering, and survival. It has been a long time since I’ve read a debut collection that stirred me as deeply as Rise and Float, and I highly anticipate more poems of beauty and truth from this poet.

You might identify Brian Tierney’s masterful Rise and Float with the subject matter it delicately, woundedly, explores: the many strains of suffering brought together under the insufficient language of 'mental illness,' and the far-reaching webs of pain and memory they engender ... But the book’s most distinctive feature is the experience of constant motion, as the poems enact a continuous search for religious consolation, which is sometimes called 'meaning,' and sometimes 'metaphysics,' a search pursued all the more sincerely because it is known to be foreclosed. That motion leaves its signature and its stage direction at every level, from the breaking of syntax across the fall of one line and its healing in the first word of the next ... Though the little rifts in language that these poems make visible once may have opened toward consolation, the reader sensitized by this book’s scarred and cynic knowledge will come to feel them as lures for false feeling, requiring the repeated, painful sacrifice of consolation in the name of honesty. This is quite dark. As is the book. But even what doesn’t console may compensate, and if Rise and Float’s search for salvific meaning fails, the language, gorgeous in its precision, remains as its own testament of perseverance ... This is a book that rises despite what it knows, celebrates the float of disbelief that poetic language allows, and mourns the precise place on the linoleum where those mirages fail.

The 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.

A tender and expansive collection that refuses to shy away from the depth of human experience. With a particular focus on the grief that is inextricably tied to living, Tierney showcases his ability to describe even the darkest moments with vibrancy ... Tierney [has a] talent for depicting even the darkest subjects with poignant vulnerability and precise language. Certainly, this adept control over language permeates each poem ... This collection is ripe with descriptions that leave lasting impressions on readers, reminding us that...amidst our grief, there is still much beauty.

What allows these poems to grow beyond two-dimensional anecdotes about death and disease is Tierney’s lyrical and arresting phrasing, which, given the gravity of subject matter, leaves the reader unsettled ... There are times, however, when Tierney’s penchant for impressionistic scenes doesn’t benefit the poem, and the imagery, outstanding as it is, serves as a poor substitute for emotional resonance. The series of moments in Anthropocene, for example, is hit-or-miss. But for the most part, Tierney’s poems reach their pitch, delivering stunning insights into the interiority of a person coping with depression and grief.

Tierney’s finely wrought debut captures the electric movement of his mind in poems that slip fluidly between subjects ... This powerful collection offers readers a probing, visual, tactile exploration of the past, while allowing space for tenderness and understanding.

The poems in Brian Tierney’s Rise and Float feel as though they’ve traveled a long way to get to the page. That is, the poems feel shockingly precise, refined, and lacking the potential pitfalls sometimes associated with 'debut' collections. Like crystals that form under tremendous pressure, Tierney’s poems have the shimmering quality of something matured and shaped by the sheer force of time and the deliberate way in which Tierney renders experience. While the poems feel at once lyric, jagged, and interior, Rise and Float as a whole collects gravity, weight, and movement over the course of its five sections ... The book isn’t afraid or shy about its handling of this topic, but it does so subtly, deftly, always with a sleight of hand. Tierney’s poetic abilities only amplify the stakes of these poems—they serve to put further into relief the question of whether or not to keep living in the face of tremendous existential suffering. It is the very precision of Tierney’s diction and syntax that allows him to access revelations of such unreserved honesty ... Tierney’s vision and poetic voice strike me as singular yet allusive, image-driven yet rhetorical, and always laced with a profound emotive intensity. His poems feel as though they are looking you in the eyes as you read them—that level of integrity, and confrontation ... If I seem emphatic about Tierney’s debut, it’s because I am—it is a book that has managed to render acute beauty from enigmatic pain.

Although it tackles heavy subjects like grief and mental health, the collection's candor and stunning images transform the melancholy into the sublime ... Finding such sparks of brightness in the shadows of life is what Tierney does best ... Hard-hitting yet soft-hearted, this collection of 30 poems is a winner.

There is a lot to love about this collection ... Tierney’s eye for drawing abstraction at precisely the right cerebral moments, casting its line into the reader’s imaginative capability, and then drawing it back in to locate the emotional centerpieces of each poem, presents a delicate skill.