You can order my new memoir-in-verse, The Nameless, from Kernpunkt Press!

The Nameless explores visions of the figure of Death as a friend, a tormentor, a savior, and a capricious and mysterious force. Death is my constant companion through an exorcism, the burning of my poems, an attempted suicide, and finally, my preoccupation with worldly success. Throughout all of this, I am guided by my great loves, poetry, the creative power of the occult, and Ashtanga yoga. As one who has chosen alternative methods of living with mental illness, rather than traditional therapy and medication, these forms of healing are essential to me. Instead of hallucinations, I think of my experiences as visions, and I am liberated by the sense of polyphony and dissolution that is inherent in the pronoun “we” throughout the book.  

Praise for The Nameless:

“It’s not possible for me to imagine a book more challenging or more pleasurable than this one. Does that sound like a contradiction? It isn’t. There is a single speaker but two alternating voices here, one that speaks directly to us of hard knocks and then happiness and another that paints an updated portrait of the fairy-tale heroine Thumbelina, who also goes through some rough patches before her life takes a turn for the better. As you read these entwined tales of trauma and redemption, you’ll dive deep but be saved at the end – poetry will save you, as it only can when it’s in the hands of someone as inventive as Brandi George. I want to re-read this book. I want everyone to read it.” –David Kirby, author of The House of Blue Light

“With an ear for music and a heart for narrative, Brandi George has spun an ambitious epic of the psyche that seamlessly blends inner and outer worlds. Capacious, sprawling, and ambitious, The Nameless applies chthonic archetypal energy to the trauma of the contemporary dysfunctional family, uniting myth, memoir, and music in a wrenching bildungsroman of poetic survival. George pulls no punches, generously channeling the pain of a creative life-journey as well as the power of the forces that can redeem it: Nature, Imagination, and the Divine Feminine. —Annie Finch, author of Spells: New and Selected Poems

“Brandi George creates a magical, frightening, and compassionate world in The Nameless. Visible and invisible experiences meld with objects below ground and above ground to create a way of survival. Abuse, mycelium, exorcism, love, trees, loneliness, mushrooms, friendship, trees, poetry, moon and more weave their way through this stunning lyrical narrative. Here we have a new language, a new mythology, a new way to live in a world that tries its best to tear us apart, but for safety we know that we can “drag our comforter outside / sleep with arms flung open // all around our comrades / ants moths cockroaches caterpillars constellations.” Here, we hold everything the world dishes out. Here, in joining forces with the earth, we survive and we celebrate.”—Terry Ann Thaxton, author of Mud Song