Nothing slips by Brecken Hancock's deft ear as she seductively plumbs the depths of the evolution of bathing, doppelgangers, the Kraken, and the minutiae of family with all its tragic misgivings. The poems in Broom Broom pervert the rational, safe parts of the world to extoll and absorb the sweep of human history.
What I mean to say is, the evidence is always there.
From where we stand, we confuse lampposts for ghosts.
Brecken Hancock's poetry, essays, interviews, and reviews have appeared in several journals, including Event and Fiddlehead. She is reviews editor for Arc Poetry Magazine.
Broom Broom won the 2015 Language Trillium Book Award for Poetry (English Language), which comes with a $10,000 cash prize. The Jury's citation for Broom Broom read:
"Personal history and private pain are made public, historical, mythological, science fictional, and monumental in this eerie, resonant debut. Hancock's poems astonish with their breadth of reference, their dense soundscapes, their terrifying wisdom, and their centrifugal emotional force."
