10 Years of Blogging

Modern Confessional has gotten a spiffy new look to mark my 10th anniversary as a blogger. I started blogging in May 2003 ahead of the release of my first poetry collection, Better To Travel. I had a dedicated website back then and the hosting company sucked. As a matter of fact, everything about the web was fairly sucky 10 years ago. It's staggering how far the world wide web has come in a decade. Anyway... I created this blog after my website had gone down for the fifth or sixth time in the span of a few weeks. I felt like I needed a back-up site in case my website disappeared into the ether. About five or six years into blogging, I realized that a static website was just that – static. So, I aimed the URL of www.collinkelley.com to this blog and never looked back. 

Here's a few sobering thoughts: This blog existed before MySpace went live. This blog existed when it was still owned by Pyra Labs and was being acquired by a little company called Google. The use of the word "blog" was coined only four years before Modern Confessional was created. In 2003, the blogosphere was still mostly a wilderness. My, oh, my how things change.

Social media sites like Facebook, Twitter and YouTube have diminished the use of the personal blog, but look at any news website or magazine and you will see that blogging is still alive and well, only the desktop has been changed. Tumblr and Pinterest are just simplified blogs. Remember when Twitter first came on the scene and it was called "micro-blogging?"

Since Modern Confessional began, I have published 1,889 posts and the blog averages about 300 pageviews per day. It took years to build a following, but blogging about poetry, spending most of 2008 writing about politics and recapping American Idol (hey, whatever works!) were what finally got Modern Confessional noticed by readers. If you're super bored, you can scroll down the right sidebar to the Archive button and find links to every one of those 1,889 posts.

I met so many poets and writers through this blog. It opened the door to dialogues, friendships, collaborations, and so much more. Sadly, many writers have shut down or abandoned their blogs (I still miss C. Dale Young's Avoiding the Muse blog), but I plan to soldier on. While the majority of my interactions are now at Facebook and Twitter, Modern Confessional is my go-to for rants, shameless self-promotion and being the "front porch" to my online life.

To all of you who have subscribed to Modern Confessional, who still check in, who leave comments – thank you from the bottom of my blogging heart. It's been one hell of a ride. Here's to 10 more years.

Weekend Update

The day job has been keeping me busy with little time to think about much else. I have cancelled my readings in the UK this summer and moved the trip to early 2014. I am incredibly disappointed, but I'm staying focused on promoting Render domestically for the rest of the year. I have two more readings coming in Atlanta, then I'm back to New York for the Word for Word Poetry Reading series in Bryant Park at the end of July and am working on booking some dates in Southern California for autumn. You can see my full reading schedule at this link or by clicking on the Readings & Events tab above.

Many thanks to ArtsATL.com for putting Render on its summer reading list. You read the mini-review and see all the books chosen at this link.

I got my contributor copy of the new LGBT poetry anthology Flicker and Spark. What a fantastic labor of love by editors Regie Cabico and Brittany Fonte. I am thrilled that three of my poems are in the anthology along with so many other great poets.

And thanks to those who came out last night to Bound to Be Read Books for my reading with Theresa Davis. Attentive audience and great questions!

Raise the Titanic

"Raise the Titanic" from my poetry collection, Render, accompanied by the gorgeous remix of "For Loves You've Lost" by brokenkites. Once again, the remix was created especially for this project. Each piece is more beautiful than the last.

The Profumo Affair remembered

Acid Flashback #1
for Billy

The first time I dropped acid,
mistaking a Johnnie Walker Black billboard
for Joanne Whalley-Kilmer straddling a chair
like in the poster for Scandal,
you couldn’t see it, even after we pulled over
on the expressway down near the airport.
How the soft gold of the striding man logo
had morphed into arms and legs akimbo
in the rising heat just before twilight.
I tried to explain Christine Keeler,
how she brought down the British government
with her showgirl appeal, accused
of being a spy, sleeping with the Muscovites,
the intricacies and absurdities of the Profumo Affair,
how sex and friendship can turn on a dime.
You told me I was too old for you, I was a show-off,
ruining your drugs with my ancient history,
the way I lorded my high school education over you.
Your words tipped us into cold war,
smoke-screened the wall you were building all year,
preparing to sacrifice me over the three years
that separated our births, making me a casualty
of your zeitgeist.
John Profumo was the last Secretary of State for War,
a position now made obsolete, struck off,
as if battle plans would never be needed again.

– Collin Kelley

A poem at Verse Daily

Many, many thanks to Verse Daily for selecting my poem "To Margot Kidder, With Love" from Render to feature on their site today. You can read the poem at this link.

Sex Machines & other updates

Render will get its official Atlanta launch on Tuesday, May 7, 7:15 p.m. at an event hosted by Poetry Atlanta and Georgia Center for the Book at the Decatur Library. I'll be reading with fellow Sibling Rivalry Press poet Theresa Davis, who will be launching her collection After This We Go Dark. The reading is free and open to the public. Charis Books will be selling our collections and we will, of course, happily sign copies for you. Find out more at this link.

My poem "Post" (which is in Render) is featured in the latest edition of Chelsea Station literary magazine. You can order a copy or sign up for a subscription at this link. It's a fantastic journal!

Many thanks to Jennifer Bogart for featuring two of the poems from Render on her blog. You can read them at this link.

Below is a reading of my poem "Sex Machines" featuring a special remix of the song "Twenty Thirteen" by the brilliant brokenkites especially for my SoundCloud project. It's been an honor and a treat to use this music that I love so much.

In memory of my father, William Harold Kelley

July 15, 1939 - April 26, 2013

My Dad passed away on Friday after being ill for a number of years. This is the last photo of him with my Mom taken in 2010 on a weekend outing to Fresh Air BBQ in Jackson, GA. He was a wonderful father and will be missed. Go gentle, Daddy-O.