Kelly Allen

Brettanomyces Kelly Allen

Brettanomyces is a memoir of time spent seeking the self in the marginal lands of America's agrarian foundations. From the dry, serrated edges of the New Mexican high desert, to the verdant tranquility of Virginia's young vineyards, these poems tell the story of looking for home amidst a sea of disparate, yet inextricably beautiful vistas. Connecting each work is a sense of food-as-place, and place-as-self. The making of wine becomes an act of connection and desire, while dry plateau treks become lenses of reflective depth, drawing parallels to mundane, modern problems. These poems speak to the emotive side of sustainability as it pertains to our food systems, to the brokenhearted toil of industrial production, and to the very literal cultural genocide of colonial advancement.