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A Poetry Book Society Recommendation
Dean Browne arrives at the After Party with the maturity and style of an altogether more seasoned poet. In a debut collection of standout and stand-alone poems, each tests the boundaries of its unique universe. Browne is a mesmeric teller of strange tales, imaginings that can seem origamically contained within the compressed dimensions of a poem. A leg sets off on a long train journey; a Parisian alley cat is launched into space; earthbound lovers attempt to connect while their inner lives prove unbridgeable.
Losses are mourned: two poets elegized here – Charles Simic and the late Donegal poet Matthew Sweeney – might offer a fingerpost of sensibilities, though Browne's significant talent is distinctly his own. After Party introduces a beguiling, resonant new voice, a raised eyebrow and fidelity to the image – sometimes carried along the tightrope much further than seems possible. In poems that are both death-haunted and youthful, and thrumming with a delicious dark humour, Dean Browne brings a much-needed injection of the surreal – or the surreal-ish as he might prefer to say – to Ireland's rising generation.
'Poems that sneak in the side-door then exit through the ceiling' Caroline Bird
'Dean Browne is a terrific poet: his language is agile and fresh, his ideas surprising, and the reader feels invigorated, renewed – and lucky to have met such poems' Nick Laird A beguiling and brilliant debut poetry collection from one of Ireland's rising generation poets. Dean Browne is from Tipperary, Ireland, and lives in Cork. He received the Geoffrey Dearmer Prize in 2021 and his pamphlet Kitchens at Night was a winner of the Poetry Business International Pamphlet Competition; it was published by SmithDoorstop in 2022. His poems have appeared in The London Magazine, The New York Review of Books, Poetry Magazine, Poetry Review, The Stinging Fly, and elsewhere. After Party is his debut collection.
Dean Browne arrives at the After Party with the maturity and style of an altogether more seasoned poet. In a debut collection of standout and stand-alone poems, each tests the boundaries of its unique universe. Browne is a mesmeric teller of strange tales, imaginings that can seem origamically contained within the compressed dimensions of a poem. A leg sets off on a long train journey; a Parisian alley cat is launched into space; earthbound lovers attempt to connect while their inner lives prove unbridgeable.
Losses are mourned: two poets elegized here – Charles Simic and the late Donegal poet Matthew Sweeney – might offer a fingerpost of sensibilities, though Browne's significant talent is distinctly his own. After Party introduces a beguiling, resonant new voice, a raised eyebrow and fidelity to the image – sometimes carried along the tightrope much further than seems possible. In poems that are both death-haunted and youthful, and thrumming with a delicious dark humour, Dean Browne brings a much-needed injection of the surreal – or the surreal-ish as he might prefer to say – to Ireland's rising generation.
'Poems that sneak in the side-door then exit through the ceiling' Caroline Bird
'Dean Browne is a terrific poet: his language is agile and fresh, his ideas surprising, and the reader feels invigorated, renewed – and lucky to have met such poems' Nick Laird A beguiling and brilliant debut poetry collection from one of Ireland's rising generation poets. Dean Browne is from Tipperary, Ireland, and lives in Cork. He received the Geoffrey Dearmer Prize in 2021 and his pamphlet Kitchens at Night was a winner of the Poetry Business International Pamphlet Competition; it was published by SmithDoorstop in 2022. His poems have appeared in The London Magazine, The New York Review of Books, Poetry Magazine, Poetry Review, The Stinging Fly, and elsewhere. After Party is his debut collection.
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Reviews
"Wildly expressive and exuberant, throwing out phrases and ideas almost recklessly. . . After Party is surely the start of an exceptional poetic career"
Graeme Richardson, Books of the Year, Sunday Times
"The success of this Cork-based 31-year-old is by no means a surprise . . . But it's still refreshing to encounter such a distilled, haunting voice"
Books of the Year, Telegraph
"After Party by Dean Browne doesn't feel like a debut collection, so measured and accomplished is the voice that constitutes it. Delightfully absurd, serious about the jokes it makes, and with enormous heart"
Mícheál McCann, Irish Times