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.

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."

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.

In the far-flung depths of the future, historians
will look back to this day and say, "This
is where it all went wrong."

my brain is on fire
so i can tell by the colors
that winter is coming

My perverse compassion had destroyed all traces of a once-in-a-lifetime trip. 

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

She needs a quick blowout, so I comb and press her golden hair until is a sheer curtain fluttering around a face thrown open to love.

When I am not exercising or performing space walks or cleaning or developing vehicle software, I watch the sun rise 16 times a day.

I had written a few aborted short stories before, but really I specialized in aborted novels.

Because you find it interesting and want it analyzed without the burden of being analyzed yourself.

This guy’s old school, Roselli says to me over the phone, real old school. How old school can you be, I’m thinking, in a sport that’s already run its course in just a few years.

A Ford Explorer firetruck and a cul-de-sac basement had a birdbath at night.

grandma was real creole
man
BRIGHT bright

As the real world feels increasingly devoid of magic, we are correct to admire those writers who attempt to interject some magic back into it.

By now you tell me how I feel.
You tell me
what I will do and how I will act.
You do the creating
for me,

I think ten t-shirts would be too many to write about, but I’m perversely hoping that twenty-two is somehow not too many. A writer can, I think, pass beyond “too many” or “too much” to a sense of rightness or aptness. The paradox: More than too much is sometimes not too much.

I can't in good conscience watch a sixteenth season of Big Brother.

I'm going to abandon everything / after this poem