Poet Brook Bhagat's ONLY FLYING Celebrates Transformation and Rebellion with Striking Determination

PORTLAND, OR; November 16, 2021— Unsolicited Press announces the release of Only Flying by Brook Bhagat. Only Flying is a collection of surreal free verse and prose poetry that celebrates transformation and paradox, exploring both the silence of the seeker and the outrageous wilderness of the imagination. Thematic threads like rebellion, enlightenment, risk, courage, love, loss, and triumph dance to life with pictures that swing from dark to light, surreal to whimsical, and strange to familiar. There are intimate goddesses here, black widows, buddhas, alley cats, a kangaroo, and magic pants—blacklight-blue Hendrix flares that hang from a fire escape, just waiting for the right person to jump up and steal them. That person is you.

From the Collection
ECLIPSE
Night after night I climb out
the same window, light
a cigarette in the snow
and look for home.

About Brook Bhagat
Brook Bhagat’s poetry, fiction, non-fiction, and humor have appeared in Monkeybicycle, Empty Mirror Magazine, Soundings East, Little India, Prometheus Dreaming, Anthem: A Tribute to Leonard Cohen, and other journals and anthologies. She is the 2020 winner of A Story in 100 Words’ nature writing contest and the 2021 winner of Loud Coffee Press’s summer microfiction contest. She and her husband Gaurav created Blue Planet Journal, which she edits and writes for. She holds an MFA from Lindenwood University, is an assistant professor of English at a community college, and is writing a novel. See more at brook-bhagat.com or reach her on Twitter at @BrookBhagat.

Praise for ONLY FLYING
In this intimate collection of interwoven poetry and prose, the magical and the mundane coexist in an exploration of personal transformation. Whether stealing magic pants off a stranger’s fire escape or unearthing new hands from the soil of a spring garden, Brook Bhagat creates a sensory experience threaded with longing and loss. At the same time, she effortlessly emphasizes the beauty of small things, echoes of ephemeral moments made up of salt and stars, feathers and eggshells. The poet turns inwards in her exploration, folds up like a paper tiger, only to then reemerge transcendent and renewed, unshackled from the gravity of false expectations and desires. In a dizzying dance of imagery and light, Bhagat’s lyricism creates a sense of remembering, a reckoning released on the wings of a wish. --Carina Bissett, award-winning writer and co-editor of Shadow Atlas: Dark Landscapes of the Americas.

About Unsolicited Press
Unsolicited Press was founded in 2012 and is based in Portland, OR. The press strives to produce exceptional works of fiction, nonfiction, and poetry from award-winning authors. Learn more at  www.unsolicitedpress.com.

ONLY FLYING is available on November 16, 2022 as a paperback (96 p.; 978-1-950730-83-4)  and e-book (all major retailers). The title is distributed to the trade by Ingram.
 
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Press only, Unsolicited Press
Eric Rancino
619.354.8005
marketing@unsolicitedpress.com
 
For artist interviews, readings, and podcasts:
Brook Bhagat
https://brook-bhagat.com/contact/​

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