To read reviews and interviews about Collin's novels, Conquering Venus and Remain In Light, visit www.conqueringvenus.blogspot.com.
After the Poison
With change and uncertainty on our American horizon, After the Poison will serve as literary time capsule, capturing the events that divided many us, tugged at our heart strings, made us take a stand or simply look away. Kelley’s rank as one of our country’s highly regarded contemporary poets is well deserved, as proven by the beautiful work in this exceptional collection. – David-Matthew Barnes, Main Street Rag, Spring 2009
Three reviews in Galatea Resurrects (December, 2008)
Review by JoSelle Vanderhooft in The Pedestal (December, 2008)
Review by David Herrle in SubtleTea (Fall, 2008)
Review by Justin Evans for Alsop Review (July, 2008)
Slow To Burn
Review by JoSelle Vanderhooft in The Pedestal (June, 2006)
Review by David Herrle in SubtleTea (May, 2006)
HalfLife Crisis CD
Review by G. Murray Thomas in Poetix (October, 2005)
Review by David Herrle in SubtleTea (January, 2005)
Better To Travel
Interview with Sean Selman for David Magazine (May, 2004)
* * *
First Book Interview with Kate Greenstreet at Every Other Day (August, 2007)
* * *
Creative Combustion - From Pride 04, June 2004
A mover and shaker in Atlanta's spoken word circles, Collin Kelley recently published a debut collection of his poems, Better To Travel. The moving, stark work has the makings of a rising star of Atlanta letters.
* * *
Better To Travel Review - Lambda Book Report, Winter 2004
Review by Kathy Vogeltanz
Out poet Collin Kelley is a literary force in his native Atlanta. Not only is he the managing editor of the arts and culture must-read, Atlanta Intown, he also hosts a popular open mic night. During the Atlanta Literary Festival, the launch of his debut, Better To Travel, drew a bigger audience than best-selling author Nicolas Sparks.
After having his poetry published in respected literary journals, Kelley said he braved the “condemnation of the establishment” to publish Better To Travel through a print-on-demand company so he could have more control over the final product. As Kelley transitions from local literati to the national scene, Better To Travel is also a force to be reckoned with, but not without a few missteps.
Kelley’s work has been called “confessional,” like Anne Sexton or Sylvia Plath, but after being raised a Catholic, I know this description isn’t entirely accurate. There’s no guilt in these poems. There’s no hedging around the truth, no stammering to implicate other influences, no begging for absolution and no fear of retribution from authority. Most of all, there is no apology.
In the poem Water (remembered), he plaintively bids farewell to a lover who is marrying a woman: “Many strangers have touched me in the elapse of time. I have courted others who contain your trace elements, hoping to divine the loss, wishing for them to channel. We speak in tongues and teeth and overheated backseats. Nothing rubs off. They are not from your mold.”
He examines moments shared with those whom he’s been closest: lovers, idols and family members. While European cities seem to be his favorite backdrop, Kelley also weaves dramatic images from more ordinary surroundings, such as in Diners At 2 a.m.: “At 2 a.m. we sit next to our ghosts, still locked in combat. And sometimes we do not speak, because the din of the past drowns us out.”
While the common theme of this work is the souring of a long relationship, there is neither the high whine of soap opera victim nor the booming voice of the self-righteous lecturer.
The only places where Better To Travel fails to connect are some of the jarring inclusions of more political works, such as 60 Seconds in Zaire (the famines in Africa), New York (a harrowing coda to the terrorist attacks), and Tapestry (a rallying cry for gay men, African-Americans and others disenfranchised). Kelley also identifies himself as a writer in a number of works, and this makes the reader too aware of the written word, breaking the spell of the poem.
The majority of this collection moves smoothly and packs a punch, almost like a novel. The title poem sets the stage for Kelley’s journey into the larger world:
The unused black
umbrella bit my
hand today.
Cheap, angry metal
and plastic offering
travel tips:
Take me someplace
where it rains.
Kelley’s Better To Travel is a journey worth taking.
* * *
Better To Travel Review - Creative Loafing, September 2003
By Tray Butler
Some travelers rack up frequent flier miles. Collin Kelley accumulates poems. His debut collection of poetry, Better to Travel, calculates the emotional sum of a decade's worth of journeys, from London to Berlin, New York to New Orleans.
Kelley, who grew up in Fayetteville, wrote most of the poems either while traveling or immediately upon return. But his verse most often transcends foreign terrain and maps a more personal landscape of loss, isolation and empowerment. Travel follows a loose narrative arc, from a failed relationship through the journey back to self-actualization. The starkly honest voice has led some readers to call him a confessional poet, like Sharon Olds or Robert Lowell. Kelley embraces the comparison.
"I don't flinch away," he says. "If you're not going to be honest, then why bother? Write fiction instead."
By day, the 33-year-old writer deals in non-fiction: He worked as a reporter for the Neighbor newspapers for 12 years, and now serves as managing editor for Atlanta Intown.
The poetry collection, available locally at Charis Books, Peachtree Highway and Barnes & Noble, takes its title from a Robert M. Pirsig quote: "Sometimes it's a little better to travel than to arrive."
Kelley seems to be experiencing an arrival of his own right now. He's starting a monthly poetry night Sept. 12 at the new Georgia Tech Barnes & Noble Booksellers, modeled after Kodac Harrison's popular Java Monkey Speaks series in Decatur. He also has several reading engagements lined up for the fall.
"The scene right now is just hot," he says. "This city amazes me for poetry. You would think you'd have to go to New York or L.A. But there's such a scene here in Atlanta."
Maybe travel is overrated after all.
Collin Kelley appears along with the Jennifer Perry Combo Sept. 5 at 7 p.m. and Sept. 7 at 4 p.m. at the Alternative Arts Festival. Contemporary Art Center, 535 Means St., 404-688-1970. He also appears Sept. 9 at 7 p.m. as part of Intervals. Horizon Theatre, 1083 Austin Ave. 404-584-7450.
Shelf Space is a weekly column on books and Atlanta's literary scene.
* * *
Better To Travel Interview - Atlanta Intown, October 2003
By Diana Schuh
For most of us, it is an unwritten rule that we only bare our souls to our most trusted friends and family members.
For poet Collin Kelley, however, it is a rule that is meant to be broken. “I like poetry that punches you in the face,” he said.
The managing editor of Atlanta News Group has just self-published his first book, Better To Travel (iUniverse), a collection that follows in the footsteps of the confessional poetry movement, which came of age in the mid 1950s. Poets Anne Sexton, Robert Lowell and Sylvia Plath examined such taboo topics as abortion, alcoholism, suicide attempts and abuse through free verse. “When you read Sexton, you always know what she’s saying,” Kelley said, adding that he is a great admirer of Sexton and poet Sharon Olds. “That’s a liberating way to write.”
For Kelley, the subject is love affairs. “Getting over relationships has been done, but it’s universal. Everyone’s been through it,” he said.
Woven into the often-painful themes are snapshots of Kelley’s travels to Europe . “Most of the poems were written while I was in those places,” he said. The poems became a sort of journal and ultimately a kind of therapy, another hallmark of confessional poetry.
Although two relationships are specifically examined, Kelley said the book reads as if it were about one person. “I learned a lot of lessons,” he said. “I realized I love the same way.”
The title, taken from a Robert Louis Stephenson quote (“It is better to travel hopefully than to arrive”) is also meant to reflect that learning process and the desire to move on.
In addition to the themes of confessional poetry, Kelley is also drawn to its form, which runs counter to other more traditional poetry. “You’re being a little more experimental,” he said of confessional poems. “And you’re not conforming to what a lot of people think poetry should be.” Because of that, he added, confessional poetry has always been divisive because it breaks so many rules. “I love the immediacy of it. To be able to express yourself and bare your soul. There’s a challenge in getting an emotion across in an economy of words. I like that challenge,” he said.
Confessional poetry is also a genre rarely explored by men. Most poets known for their confessional work are female. “Women have always been known to just lay it out there,” he said. “Women express themselves better than men,” adding that most of his favorite poets are women. “I have some empathy and sympathy, I think, because I’m a gay man.”
Most of the poems in Better To Travel were written in the mid to late 1990s and it was at the urging of friends, as well as a small grant from his hometown library in Fayetteville , that he pursued self-publishing, an idea he once resisted.
Once referred to disparagingly as vanity publishing, the advent of such self-publishing houses like iUniverse and 1stBooks have reduced the stigma. Independent bookstores as well as bookstore chains will often carry self-published titles and hold reading and autograph sessions.
“Large [publishing] houses will not touch poetry,” Kelley said. “A lot of poets are taking it into their own hands. It’s a tough market. You’re not making any money there.”
Kelley admits that he liked having complete artistic control of the book including the cover, which features a striking winter scene he found on the Internet and obtained permission to use.
But one of the advantages of having a major publisher is access to a marketing department with a budget to promote your book. Kelley, however, has become a whiz at self-promotion. His years of journalism experience (he previously held positions at The Neighbor newspapers and the Fayette Sun) have netted a broad range of contacts.
“It’s almost like a split personality. You have to separate yourself from writing the book to selling the book,” he said.
Since its publication, Better To Travel has opened more publishing doors for Kelley. This fall some of his work will appear in the anthology, Java Monkey Speaks, and early next year, Shout Them From the Mountain Tops: Georgia Poems, will also feature his poems.
Kelley is also hosting an open mic night at the Barnes & Noble at Georgia Tech the second Friday of each month at 7 p.m., and is a regular at poetry readings all over the city, including his weekly appearances at Java Monkey Speaks in Decatur on Sunday nights. He will join poets Cecilia Woloch and John Amen for a mini-tour of the south to promote their books later this month and in November.
“I’ve met a lot of poets who are so good but they’re shy. You have to get over that,” he said, adding that he was very nervous when he started publicly reading his work. “It’s always like walking a tightrope on what the reception will be.”
That acrobatic feat also brings with it the potential for rejection. “You have to be strong-willed, you have to know the work is good enough,” he said.
And Kelley remains undeterred by society’s disdain for the personal. His next poetry book “will probably alienate some people,” he said, as it touches on terrorism, politics and body fascism. “A lot of critics hated Olds and Sexton,” he said. “When you know you’re on the path and you’ve got the support, you have to keep going.”
Anthologies and Other Press
Review of Outside the Green Zone anthology by James Owen in The Pedestal (December, 2006)
Java Monkey Speaks Anthology named in in Top 5 Books by Local Authors 2006 in Creative Loafing (December, 2006)
Review of A Slice of Cherry Pie anthology in Galatea Resurrects (May 2007)
SEE & HEAR COLLIN
Creative Combustion - From Pride 04, June 2004
A mover and shaker in Atlanta's spoken word circles, Collin Kelley recently published a debut collection of his poems, Better To Travel. The moving, stark work has the makings of a rising star of Atlanta letters.
* * *
Better To Travel Review - Lambda Book Report, Winter 2004
Review by Kathy Vogeltanz
Out poet Collin Kelley is a literary force in his native Atlanta. Not only is he the managing editor of the arts and culture must-read, Atlanta Intown, he also hosts a popular open mic night. During the Atlanta Literary Festival, the launch of his debut, Better To Travel, drew a bigger audience than best-selling author Nicolas Sparks.
After having his poetry published in respected literary journals, Kelley said he braved the “condemnation of the establishment” to publish Better To Travel through a print-on-demand company so he could have more control over the final product. As Kelley transitions from local literati to the national scene, Better To Travel is also a force to be reckoned with, but not without a few missteps.
Kelley’s work has been called “confessional,” like Anne Sexton or Sylvia Plath, but after being raised a Catholic, I know this description isn’t entirely accurate. There’s no guilt in these poems. There’s no hedging around the truth, no stammering to implicate other influences, no begging for absolution and no fear of retribution from authority. Most of all, there is no apology.
In the poem Water (remembered), he plaintively bids farewell to a lover who is marrying a woman: “Many strangers have touched me in the elapse of time. I have courted others who contain your trace elements, hoping to divine the loss, wishing for them to channel. We speak in tongues and teeth and overheated backseats. Nothing rubs off. They are not from your mold.”
He examines moments shared with those whom he’s been closest: lovers, idols and family members. While European cities seem to be his favorite backdrop, Kelley also weaves dramatic images from more ordinary surroundings, such as in Diners At 2 a.m.: “At 2 a.m. we sit next to our ghosts, still locked in combat. And sometimes we do not speak, because the din of the past drowns us out.”
While the common theme of this work is the souring of a long relationship, there is neither the high whine of soap opera victim nor the booming voice of the self-righteous lecturer.
The only places where Better To Travel fails to connect are some of the jarring inclusions of more political works, such as 60 Seconds in Zaire (the famines in Africa), New York (a harrowing coda to the terrorist attacks), and Tapestry (a rallying cry for gay men, African-Americans and others disenfranchised). Kelley also identifies himself as a writer in a number of works, and this makes the reader too aware of the written word, breaking the spell of the poem.
The majority of this collection moves smoothly and packs a punch, almost like a novel. The title poem sets the stage for Kelley’s journey into the larger world:
The unused black
umbrella bit my
hand today.
Cheap, angry metal
and plastic offering
travel tips:
Take me someplace
where it rains.
Kelley’s Better To Travel is a journey worth taking.
* * *
Better To Travel Review - Creative Loafing, September 2003
By Tray Butler
Some travelers rack up frequent flier miles. Collin Kelley accumulates poems. His debut collection of poetry, Better to Travel, calculates the emotional sum of a decade's worth of journeys, from London to Berlin, New York to New Orleans.
Kelley, who grew up in Fayetteville, wrote most of the poems either while traveling or immediately upon return. But his verse most often transcends foreign terrain and maps a more personal landscape of loss, isolation and empowerment. Travel follows a loose narrative arc, from a failed relationship through the journey back to self-actualization. The starkly honest voice has led some readers to call him a confessional poet, like Sharon Olds or Robert Lowell. Kelley embraces the comparison.
"I don't flinch away," he says. "If you're not going to be honest, then why bother? Write fiction instead."
By day, the 33-year-old writer deals in non-fiction: He worked as a reporter for the Neighbor newspapers for 12 years, and now serves as managing editor for Atlanta Intown.
The poetry collection, available locally at Charis Books, Peachtree Highway and Barnes & Noble, takes its title from a Robert M. Pirsig quote: "Sometimes it's a little better to travel than to arrive."
Kelley seems to be experiencing an arrival of his own right now. He's starting a monthly poetry night Sept. 12 at the new Georgia Tech Barnes & Noble Booksellers, modeled after Kodac Harrison's popular Java Monkey Speaks series in Decatur. He also has several reading engagements lined up for the fall.
"The scene right now is just hot," he says. "This city amazes me for poetry. You would think you'd have to go to New York or L.A. But there's such a scene here in Atlanta."
Maybe travel is overrated after all.
Collin Kelley appears along with the Jennifer Perry Combo Sept. 5 at 7 p.m. and Sept. 7 at 4 p.m. at the Alternative Arts Festival. Contemporary Art Center, 535 Means St., 404-688-1970. He also appears Sept. 9 at 7 p.m. as part of Intervals. Horizon Theatre, 1083 Austin Ave. 404-584-7450.
Shelf Space is a weekly column on books and Atlanta's literary scene.
* * *
Better To Travel Interview - Atlanta Intown, October 2003
By Diana Schuh
For most of us, it is an unwritten rule that we only bare our souls to our most trusted friends and family members.
For poet Collin Kelley, however, it is a rule that is meant to be broken. “I like poetry that punches you in the face,” he said.
The managing editor of Atlanta News Group has just self-published his first book, Better To Travel (iUniverse), a collection that follows in the footsteps of the confessional poetry movement, which came of age in the mid 1950s. Poets Anne Sexton, Robert Lowell and Sylvia Plath examined such taboo topics as abortion, alcoholism, suicide attempts and abuse through free verse. “When you read Sexton, you always know what she’s saying,” Kelley said, adding that he is a great admirer of Sexton and poet Sharon Olds. “That’s a liberating way to write.”
For Kelley, the subject is love affairs. “Getting over relationships has been done, but it’s universal. Everyone’s been through it,” he said.
Woven into the often-painful themes are snapshots of Kelley’s travels to Europe . “Most of the poems were written while I was in those places,” he said. The poems became a sort of journal and ultimately a kind of therapy, another hallmark of confessional poetry.
Although two relationships are specifically examined, Kelley said the book reads as if it were about one person. “I learned a lot of lessons,” he said. “I realized I love the same way.”
The title, taken from a Robert Louis Stephenson quote (“It is better to travel hopefully than to arrive”) is also meant to reflect that learning process and the desire to move on.
In addition to the themes of confessional poetry, Kelley is also drawn to its form, which runs counter to other more traditional poetry. “You’re being a little more experimental,” he said of confessional poems. “And you’re not conforming to what a lot of people think poetry should be.” Because of that, he added, confessional poetry has always been divisive because it breaks so many rules. “I love the immediacy of it. To be able to express yourself and bare your soul. There’s a challenge in getting an emotion across in an economy of words. I like that challenge,” he said.
Confessional poetry is also a genre rarely explored by men. Most poets known for their confessional work are female. “Women have always been known to just lay it out there,” he said. “Women express themselves better than men,” adding that most of his favorite poets are women. “I have some empathy and sympathy, I think, because I’m a gay man.”
Most of the poems in Better To Travel were written in the mid to late 1990s and it was at the urging of friends, as well as a small grant from his hometown library in Fayetteville , that he pursued self-publishing, an idea he once resisted.
Once referred to disparagingly as vanity publishing, the advent of such self-publishing houses like iUniverse and 1stBooks have reduced the stigma. Independent bookstores as well as bookstore chains will often carry self-published titles and hold reading and autograph sessions.
“Large [publishing] houses will not touch poetry,” Kelley said. “A lot of poets are taking it into their own hands. It’s a tough market. You’re not making any money there.”
Kelley admits that he liked having complete artistic control of the book including the cover, which features a striking winter scene he found on the Internet and obtained permission to use.
But one of the advantages of having a major publisher is access to a marketing department with a budget to promote your book. Kelley, however, has become a whiz at self-promotion. His years of journalism experience (he previously held positions at The Neighbor newspapers and the Fayette Sun) have netted a broad range of contacts.
“It’s almost like a split personality. You have to separate yourself from writing the book to selling the book,” he said.
Since its publication, Better To Travel has opened more publishing doors for Kelley. This fall some of his work will appear in the anthology, Java Monkey Speaks, and early next year, Shout Them From the Mountain Tops: Georgia Poems, will also feature his poems.
Kelley is also hosting an open mic night at the Barnes & Noble at Georgia Tech the second Friday of each month at 7 p.m., and is a regular at poetry readings all over the city, including his weekly appearances at Java Monkey Speaks in Decatur on Sunday nights. He will join poets Cecilia Woloch and John Amen for a mini-tour of the south to promote their books later this month and in November.
“I’ve met a lot of poets who are so good but they’re shy. You have to get over that,” he said, adding that he was very nervous when he started publicly reading his work. “It’s always like walking a tightrope on what the reception will be.”
That acrobatic feat also brings with it the potential for rejection. “You have to be strong-willed, you have to know the work is good enough,” he said.
And Kelley remains undeterred by society’s disdain for the personal. His next poetry book “will probably alienate some people,” he said, as it touches on terrorism, politics and body fascism. “A lot of critics hated Olds and Sexton,” he said. “When you know you’re on the path and you’ve got the support, you have to keep going.”
Anthologies and Other Press
Review of Outside the Green Zone anthology by James Owen in The Pedestal (December, 2006)
Java Monkey Speaks Anthology named in in Top 5 Books by Local Authors 2006 in Creative Loafing (December, 2006)
Review of A Slice of Cherry Pie anthology in Galatea Resurrects (May 2007)
SEE & HEAR COLLIN
