Keeping Up

by Allison Blevins

Poetry. Hand-sewn chapbook. Number 5 in Volume Six of the Seven Kitchens Press Editor's Series, selected by Ron Mohring.

25 pages, Hardcover

Published November 1, 2025

Reviews

[Erin Murphy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Gotta admit I did not expect a poetry chapbook to open with a quote from Khloe Kardashian. But dang, “I love hard” does sum up this fierce collection by Allison Blevins. I should have suspected from the title -- "Keeping Up” -- that these prose poems would allude to the infamous influencers. This is no mere spin-off, though. It’s a high-brow, low-brow see-saw. The springboards alternate between episodes of “Keeping Up with the Kardashians” and fine art, ekphrasis at its most inclusive. Do I mix my metaphors? Very well then, I mix my metaphors. It’s fitting for a book that merges memories of current and former loves, sassiness (“I hope all my exes are afraid of what I’ll write, of who might read.”), mental health, mortality, parenting, and desire in twenty pages, a superhighway cul-de-sac. We talk about economy of language in poetry -- expressing large ideas with the fewest possible words. Blevins is the Empress of Economy, the Ebenezer Scrooge of squeezing meaning out of airtight lines. Take this single sentence from “People Are More Beautiful Than They Think”: “Nights at twenty-five, I’d drive the eight lane interstate home high, forget to open my eyes, miles of Oregon green landscape, the long blink, the blackness between there and home.” And oh, those sounds! Nights/ five/ I’d/ drive/ high/ eyes/ miles. That is some kick-ass…onance. From the title poem: “How grotesque it is to live in flesh. I’m in love with the flawless screen, with flashing teeth.” But that’s only a half-truth. “Keeping Up” is a Dolce & Gabbana juicer (google it!) pulverizing all the beauty and damage that make us human. I devoured it.