This Sunday at 3 pm Eastern on Zoom, we are hosting a poetry reading featuring the Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets and Pulitzer Prize Finalist, Dorianne Laux, and current Pulitzer Prize Winner, Diane Seuss. Register to attend the reading here.
Author Archives: Rogan Kelly
Convergence of Song
I once found myself in a little town, outside Salerno, Italy, called Castelnuovo. It was a mountain village that had been altered by the earthquake. Farmland changed, rivers diverted. What remains persists. This is our second spring for those marking the time. There’s a connectivity to the work here that feels special. I don’t knowContinue reading “Convergence of Song”
The story I’m telling
I took up residence in the Toronto airport once. The reasons are a long story and not the one I’m telling. Toronto has two airports. This was the one all in glass. They had a sushi bar that also served coffee. Lattes named after famous novels. I drank from The Awakening twice. Tried The EnglishContinue reading “The story I’m telling”
Waterfall Rising
I am struck by the kind of conversation that takes flight in Laurie Saurborn’s review of Valyntina Grenier’s FEVER DREAM / TAKE HEART. The grounding Saurborn accounts for in Grenier’s image-building. Grenier, also a visual artist, knows how to engage the mind’s eye of the reader–or pull back the curtain and reveal her own. ThereContinue reading “Waterfall Rising”
This time a year ago,
I was sitting in a NYC bar with Philip F. Clark waiting for a reading of some sort, writing down possible journal names. Wondered if The Night Heron Barks would get us laughed out of the room.
An Invitation
I suspect editors have their own version of that hypothetical, if they could invite any five people for dinner. I think of poets and poems.
Only the poets
I woke early this morning to the news that a certain Republican senator had tweeted last night his intention to vote against witnesses in the impeachment trial. Trying to push down a sense of anger and dismay, I returned to Lisa Rosenberg’s poem which I first read yesterday.
I will tell you
after the left hook of Gustavo Hernandez’ poem title hits you, the right cross of his dedication leaves its mark. You tap play to hear the sure tenor of him read Across the Southwest our Mothers were Sidelined and note that his voice is not angry.
Reflection on present light
In my own work, I am sometimes still crossed up between two tellings or the sense I didn’t say everything I wanted to say.
The Timely Poem
One of the things that I spoke out loud about two weeks ago was the idea that we would make space for work that needs to be heard now. Carole Bromley has written a poem with quiet heartbreak in it. It made me think about foregrounds and backgrounds. How if we whisper about what isContinue reading “The Timely Poem”