[10/07/25] O'Brien, Colleen: Reel

Cleveland State University Poetry Center, paperback

Publication Date: October 7, 2025

Publisher Marketing: "I didn't mean to be at this party," writes Colleen O'Brien in Reel, as the reader realizes they too have been absorbed into a spirited, spinning acceleration. In this mesmerizing debut collection of poetry, O'Brien's shattering sonic sensibility tethers us to the material world via humor while a vibrant commitment to expansive precision moves us "closer farther." The poems in Reel occupy a liquid, naturalistic desire for language play with Modernist-influenced winks of resistance to absolute cohesion. O'Brien's wry, sly, kaleidoscopic lines turn mid-word toward surprise, exacting a powerful attention to too-often overlooked beings and images: stones, peas, pearls, rhymes, animals, children. Here is an oblique yet deeply relational poetics: vulnerable, alert, observant.