WEEKEND UPDATE II: I attended poet Chelsea Rathburn's book release party on Saturday night. It was held at a hard-to-find gallery, but there was a nice crowd. Chelsea writes in form and makes it look - and sound - easy. Her debut collection, The Shifting Line, is full of triolets and iambic pentameter couplets, but she puts her own spin on these traditional forms. I'm featuring her at the April edition of Poetry at the Portfolio Center, so if you missed her this past weekend, mark April 7 on your calendar. I was also thrilled to run into fellow poets Beth Gylys, Robin Kemp and Jennifer Wheelock at the launch party. Beth is featuring at PC this coming Friday. If you're in Atlanta, don't miss it!

On Sunday, I saw Cache (see the review in the previous post) with my friend Malory and then met up with Kodac Harrison to discuss the next Java Monkey Speaks Anthology, which we are co-editing. This second edition is going to be big. The roster is a who's who of poets, including Patricia Smith, Maureen Seaton, Thomas Lux, Sholeh Wolpe, Cecilia Woloch, Stephen Bluestone, Ann Fisher-Wirth and the list goes on and on. I am thrilled to be editing this anthology and working with these fine poets. The book is set for publication from Poetry Atlanta Press in June to mark the fifth anniversary of the Java Monkey Speaks open mic and reading series in Decatur, Georgia.

I skipped Java Monkey on Sunday to come home and begin reading the galley proof of my chapbook, Slow To Burn. It looks AMAZING. I'm working with MetroMania Press publisher/designer Tanya Keyser to make the chapbook perfect. One of the big changes is the removal of a poem that we both really liked, but realized just doesn't gel with the rest of the work. I thought Slow To Burn would be thematically loose, but its wound up being fairly cohesive with themes of death, religion, reflection, and artistic freedom at all costs. It's not all gloom and doom, but it's not a feel good book. Sorry, I don't do "feel good" poetry. While the chapbook is a limited edition and was going to be just available through the MetroMania website and at my readings, the initial interest has prompted us to get an ISBN number. That means Slow To Burn will be available at Amazon.com and other online bookstores. Very exciting.

In memoriam: Coretta Scott King and Wendy Wasserstein.

Comments

Anonymous said…
You know CoRo was out here in Cali (ok....Tiajuana but close enough) trying to get some "holistic healing" from a quack. Why do celebrities always think conmen can heal them? Maybe its an Atlanta thing. You know LeftEye from TLC was down in Honduras (or wherever it was) getting cleansed of her toxins but some quack who said he could cure AIDS and cancer when she died in that car accident. Freaky stuff.

Congrats on all the poetry stuff. Are you making any money?

GAV
Collin Kelley said…
CoRo?

You have been in California too long, my friend. Must everyone have a nickname? lol

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