Navigation

by Brittney Corrigan

Brittney Corrigan's Navigation describes an arc of passage guided by the uncertain stars her grandfather revealed to her and those he kept hidden. In Navigation, Corrigan enters the unchartered waters and unmapped lands, where she must establish the way, not only for herself, but for her child with autism. Navigation is a fluid narrative about not only generations, but the act of generating one's own life both inside and outside of the boundaries laid by family. Praise for Brittney Corrigan s Brittney Corrigan s poems are richly narrative, deeply engaging, and warm. And they always have been. Her poems spring from wonderful, mysterious, confounding, and haunting moments and memories, and carry you back into your own life with more vigor and understanding.
-Naomi Shihab Nye My hands are full of small eggs, small flowers,/deli- cate hope. What of this is ordinary? writes Brittney Corrigan, and in her poems the answer is that the pulse of every day is made extraordinary as she chronicles the struggles and joys of family in a voice all too aware of a difficult world made all the more dear by our precarious place in it.
-Maxine Scates In Brittney Corrigan s poems dailiness is transfigured so that we are always seeming to meet the ordinary dramas of life in unexpected ways, and with the gift of unexpected insight. Her poems are full of just the thing/you think you know/but you don t , brought to us in language that is at once welcoming and deeply meditative. If her work has a tutelary deity it is the god of small things, who is also, of course, the god of the biggest things. After reading these poems, we know they are one and the same.
-Ger Killeen

112 pages, Paperback

First published April 16, 2012

About the author

Brittney Corrigan is the author of the poetry collections Daughters, Breaking, Navigation, 40 Weeks and most recently, Solastalgia, a collection of poems about climate change, extinction, and the Anthropocene Age (JackLeg Press, 2023). Brittney was raised in Colorado and has lived in Portland, Oregon for more than three decades, where she is an alumna and employee of Reed College. Her recent debut short story collection, The Ghost Town Collectives, won the 2023 Osprey Award for Fiction from Middle Creek Publishing.

Reviews

[Sue · Rating 5 out of 5]

I first encountered Brittney Corrigan as one of the poets whose work we accepted for the first and second issues of The Timberline Review. Her poems had a refreshing blend of concrete details and down-to-earth insights skillfully put together. When she contacted me asking to be a featured author at the Nye Beach Writers Series, I said yes, and she did not disappoint. Nor does her first complete book of poems disappoint. Navigation, as you would guess, broadly encompasses both physical and spiritual travels, including a section on the birth and childhood of her son. These are poems to treasure. Corrigan has also published a chapbook titled 40 Weeks, which takes us through the stage of pregnancy.