Burial Grounds – Poems, Essays

Burial Grounds is a collection of narratives and observations set in a contemporary, rural, Midwestern American landscape. The general theme is rural death and decline. The poems are formal but not rigidly so. The stories are not true, though many were inspired by situations encountered during years of travel. However, any resemblance to actual people and places is strictly coincidental.

On the heels of this first collection, I hope to use this site to continue to share my poetry – and my thoughts about poetry – in poems and essays over the next few years.

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Burial Grounds testimonials

In Burial Grounds, Brian Gavin speaks with a voice that’s profoundly in the world, but not of it. The transcendent elegance of his lyricism is grounded in the humanness of everyday imagery, where the lives of those unseen take centerstage. As the internal and external landscapes merge, even the most ordinary settings become symbolically significant. The quiet expansiveness of Gavin’s voice will appeal to readers who love poets like Carl Philips, Mark Doty, and Louise Gluck. It’s a voice of both interiority and universality, a voice that speaks to our moment of truths that have always been.

Ella Peary

award-winning editor and instructor at Authors Publish

Gavin’s poems are quiet, elegant reflections on people – alive and dead – in danger of being forgotten, in towns not in the mainstream of modern life.

Burial Grounds testimonials

Ella Peary

Robin Helweg-Larsen

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