In early March I receive a request from poet Kelly Nelson. She won a chapbook contest, she explains. The small collection of 18 poems will be published in the fall by Concrete Wolf, a press in Washington state.
Kelly writes:
I love the anatomy series you’ve been working on – both human and animals.
My chapbook is called “Rivers I Don’t Live By” and deals with themes of place and dislocation. I would love to have a detail from your work “You Are Here” or from another map-like piece of yours as the cover art. I think that would fit beautifully with the title of my book as well as with the theme.
I receive 10 signed copies this week. The cover includes a detail shot of a work titled It’s All Intimate.
Naturally I make associations to the way I experience an art exhibition and how I might relate to Kelly’s chapbook. It’s a small book, with an appealing cover. I like the way it feels. I think of each poem like a painting, together they are a series – a connected body of work. I open the book and look at Kelly’s words.
The Practice of Female Dispersal
Abstract
Two million years ago, males stayed close to home, females radiated.
The first poem and its first line catch my full attention and I go sit and do a full read.
Congratulations Kelly!
Thanks for inviting me be a small part of this. I understand now why my maps and studies caught your attention.
Rivers I Don’t Live By is available through Amazon and Concrete Wolf Publications
About the Author
Kelly Nelson’s poems have been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and for Best of the Net and have appeared in 2 River View, I-70 Review, Watershed Review and elsewhere. She’s the recipient of a grant from the Arizona Commission on the Arts and was a Visiting Artist at the Regional Cultural Center in New York Mills, Minnesota. She holds a Ph.D. in Anthropology from Brandeis University and teaches Interdisciplinary Studies at Arizona State University.
For more info visit → Kelly’s website.
Monica Aissa Martinez 