BESTIARY was released in October of 2016 by Graywolf Press and has garnered a great deal of praise, including being longlisted for the 2016 National Book Award in Poetry. Kelly was kind enough to answer a few of my questions via email regarding the notion of self in poetry, how trauma and grief can manifest in art, and how her critical work informs (or fails to inform) her poetry.
She can't remember the important bad things. I ask her about the divorces and the dead dogs buried in the woods and the cracks in the bathroom tile and the negative, blood red balance in her checking account and her eyes go blank and she shakes her head like she's been overcome by some faint neurological chill.
I have watched too much reality TV about Kimye and teen mothers. This is why I cannot explain April like a normal person.
I came at reading this book as I do most things. Like a fool. I expected what the cover hinted at. A memoir. Some casual retelling of Norm's life. I expected quaint takes of rural Canadian life
In memory, we wanted to repost this gem from 2014 by Amanda Goldblatt that used Mary Tyler Moore as a lens to become a "review of friendship."
As a houseguest, I sucked. I acted like I was doing them a favor by living there, but in reality I would have been destitute without their hospitality.
I've been a Kevin Wilson fan since his debut story collection, Tunneling to the Center of the Earth, first found it's way into my hands, one way or another. I've been reading and re-reading the
“They were getting ‘the talk,’” Carmen says, pausing dramatically, “and in walks a huge nurse wearing a robe.”
Looking back, the efforts we made were desperate. We took walks. In bed, he fed me grapes; chilled, out of the refrigerator. We took weekends off work, spending money in small towns where there was
Later that evening, when confronted about my absence, I told her that my grandfather said I looked sick and should go home. His senility always made him my reliable scapegoat.
Miracles come more seldom now.
It’s satellite interference.
...the products we couldn't get here. They'd come home with stories of innocent smiles given to bored border guards while they wore two pairs of jeans under three dresses. The trunk of their car filled with Cherry Coke and flavours of chips we couldn't comprehend. Cheap rum. Meat. Cigarettes. Electronics.
In the far-flung depths of the future, historians
will look back to this day and say, "This
is where it all went wrong."
This was the “Year of the Whopper”:
I ate a Whopper.
I ate a Whopper.
You dumped me.
There’s something about a horse that floats.
Watch her neck hover over the half-door
of a stall, or her sunlit backside rise
My perverse compassion had destroyed all traces of a once-in-a-lifetime trip.
Everything is cosmically predestined when you are stoned. She put off the trip as long as she could, eating three-day old pasta out of Tupperware. This is what they mean by mind-numbing. This is some strong shit.
Benjamin Franklin’s wife rubbed his paper fingers all over her body, saying, "I’ve got you now, Sweet Baby, I’ve got you now.”
A Tribe Called Quest
We Got It From Here... Thank You 4 Your Service
Released: November 11, 2016
Label: Epic Records
Length: 61 minutes, 16 songs
All of my favorite people are
