Brazil, Indiana, is so much more than the crazed crazy quilt of fringed, frayed, fabricated dry goods of unique voice and character scored with the sore ache of waking life in the heart of the heart of the country. It’s a whirligig of worries and wonders, set piece work wigwagging out waves of distress, waves of warning, erratic centripetal directions on how to go nowhere fast. —Michael Martone, Author of Michael Martone and Winesburg, Indiana A testimony to an era, to things hidden from public view, the people behind a home's kitchen curtains or a barn's swinging door. Every town should be lucky enough to have such a skilled, perceptive narrator. —Grant Clauser, Author of The Trouble with Rivers and Necessary Myths Dad said Carl Sandburg was the only poet he understood. I’m starting to feel that way about Brian Beatty. —Bit Lepp, Storyteller and Author of The King of Little Things
Author
I've published five poetry collections: Magpies and Crows (Ravenna Press, 2021), Borrowed Trouble, Dust and Stars: Miniatures (Cholla Needles Press, 2019 and 2018), Brazil, Indiana: A Folk Poem (Kelsay Books, 2017) and Coyotes I Couldn't See (Red Bird Chapbooks, 2016). Hobo Radio, a spoken-word album of my poems featuring original music by Charlie Parr, was released by Corrector Records in early 2021. My jokes, poems, reviews and short stories have appeared in numerous print and digital publications, including Alba, The American Journal of Poetry, Anti-Heroin Chic, The Bark, Black Bough Poetry (Wales), Conduit, Cowboy Jamboree, CutBank, Daily Drunk Magazine, Dark Mountain (England), 8 Poems, elimae, The Evergreen Review, Floyd County Moonshine, Forklift Ohio, The Freshwater Review, Glasgow Review of Books (Scotland), Gulf Coast, Hobart, Hoosier Noir, Hoot, Hummingbird, Kentucky Review, McSweeney's (online and print), Midwestern Gothic, The Missouri Review, The Moth (Ireland), museum of americana, Noir Nation, NOON, Not Deer Magazine, Phoebe, Poetry City USA, Prose Poem: An International Journal, Publishers Weekly, Quail Bell, The Quarterly, Rain Taxi, Rattle, The Raw Art Review, Sequestrum, Seventeen, Shotgun Honey, The Southern Review, Switchblade, Sycamore Review and Two Hawks Quarterly, among others. My writing has also been featured in public art projects and on public radio. I live in St. Paul, Minnesota.
