Before We Reached the Sea

By Brendan McEntee

As the tide goes in to come out, Before We Reached the Sea has a voice that does the same. This incisive voice of broken hearted grief carves the world beautifully, always gifting us another vantage point as the world around it withers away. Few things are in our control, filling the cracks with a golden view that, as McEntee shows us, may be all we have left.

-Brian Geraghty, author, This Too Is a Place

Brendan is Orpheus walking through the land of the dead, singing of the lives they once had. Brendan is Diogenes offering Alexander the Great a cup of ruin. In all cases, homeless, residing in the moment even and especially if it's passed. Inevitably he looks back, losing it all, but not before he's shared with us his unforgettable glimpse.

-Don Zirilli, author, Heaven's Not for You

We "live in pauses and edits." McEntee's raw poetic vignettes chronicle loss poignantly. His poems question our experiences as "reparations for living beyond" those we love. Before We Reached The Sea is a collection that holds us in the precarious realization of how precious and fleeting our existence is.

-Christina M. Rau, author, the Elgin Award-winning Liberating the Astronauts

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1639808078
• ISBN13: 9781639808076
• Release Date: November 2025
• Publisher: Kelsay Books
• Length: 70 Pages
• Weight: 0.23 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.2" x 6.0" x 9.0"