Review: Carpe Delirium by Christopher Browzan

By Mark McConville

When I put this compendium of poetry and reflections down, I felt a connection to every word expressed in vivid detail, every word meticulously sourced, and every dark scenario placed with care and thought. Carpe Delirium by screenwriter, director, multi-talented writer Christopher Browzan, captures the essence of struggle and pain, and the writer doesn’t hold back on his expressions through his poetic wizardly and thought processes.  

Carpe Delirium is dark, there’s no doubting that, but the best art is. Happiness drives off a cliff here, crashing into the sea below. Hope loses its desire, and peace has no place to rest, though the writing depicts moments where that doesn’t matter. Browzan is committed to creating worlds that enchant even in the gloom, and his work impresses and catches the reader off guard.  

Browzan’s optimism seems shattered within the lines of these wonderfully adept poems, stanzas that scream like ghosts who want to be noticed by the flooding public. Every twist and turn is arresting, putting the readers in the frame, giving them a chance to investigate the world of a writer who has felt the brunt of alienation and agony.  

The poetry startles too, as its full of reflections and notable times spent in dirty rooms, squalor's, where dreams are pulverised. Browzan also has a knack of creating these lines which really do shudder the bones, and they do offer the readers an outlet for them to indulge in the darkness.  

With the poetry, there’s also deep reflections by Browzan. He portrays through paragraphs his time navigating through Paris, spending time trying to get his head together. Music is described wholeheartedly throughout the book too, and it’s clear Browzan knows his stuff, and the writer uses music to connect to people and the world. 

Carpe Delirium pushes the boundaries of poetry. There are poems within the book that dissect the purpose of love, and there are poems that commit to the darkness. Some of the poems are evocative and mind-bending, proving Browzan has the know-how to create special writing which doesn’t adhere to the rules.  

I'm sure this book will hit home for a lot of people, because mental torture is a familiar tune for many of us, and sometimes it just crushes you. Not many books these days make a dent, let alone shift how you see things, but this one—this raw, story-driven beast—does it in a gripping way.