What do you think?
Rate this book
Abloom & Awry
With the eye of a journalist and the heart of a caretaker, Kelley shares her love of words, fireworks, kites, sea-salt caramels, metaphor, and humans. Armed with a generative impulse, her poems pay close attention to the dark, moving through it with wit and affirmation.
- GenresPoetry
116 pages, Paperback
Published April 4, 2017
6 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
June 18, 2018
Thanks to Tina Kelley’s ABLOOM & AWRY (CavanKerry Press, 2017), I know there is a Boredom Proneness Scale, and “people really bored at work are twice as likely to die of a heart attack.” I’ve also been enlightened to the fact that “the seafloor moves in ‘mass wasting / events’—landslides, flows, falls.” One of the many reasons I read poetry is to be dazzled by curious facts. I loved finding out, for instance, that “after nine days of dividing, each human embryo develops a right and a left side,” and that “Each year we use enough coffin steel / to build a Golden Gate Bridge.”
I also enjoy acquiring new vocabulary; for instance, that saeculum is “the amount of time between / an event and the death of its last witness,” that crops that perennate “live over/from one harvest season to another” and what Katabatic means: “of or related to wind produced by cold, dense air flowing down a mountain slope or glacier.”
But a few more cool factoids lodged in my brain and an expanded vocabulary were not the prime reason I fell in love with Abloom & Awry. What grabbed me most was how Kelley puts into action the instructions for writing poems she lays out in “The Possible Utility of Poets,” the opening poem in this lush and life-affirming collection. It begins by sharing how a poet must be a knower of trees, a noticer of stars, and very much not a “use[r] of tone-deaf metaphors, the second or third easiest thought.” Paying close attention is a poet’s duty, so when her daughter asks “What does the moon mean?” she knows damn well to use it in a poem. Also, as she states, “Extra credit for imagining / a snow caterpillar, or lightning a foot deep.”
Having laid out, Alexander Pope’s “Essay on Criticism”-style, her list of requirements for the would-be poet, the subsequent eighty pages of her book show us exactly how it’s done. By turns witty, woeful, and wise, Kelley were the startling declarations, wild metaphors, zany confessions, gorgeous music, and spot-on imagery. It's a book I know I will return to for comfort and reassurance that even though a lot is wrong with the world, there's a helluva lot to be grateful for.
I also enjoy acquiring new vocabulary; for instance, that saeculum is “the amount of time between / an event and the death of its last witness,” that crops that perennate “live over/from one harvest season to another” and what Katabatic means: “of or related to wind produced by cold, dense air flowing down a mountain slope or glacier.”
But a few more cool factoids lodged in my brain and an expanded vocabulary were not the prime reason I fell in love with Abloom & Awry. What grabbed me most was how Kelley puts into action the instructions for writing poems she lays out in “The Possible Utility of Poets,” the opening poem in this lush and life-affirming collection. It begins by sharing how a poet must be a knower of trees, a noticer of stars, and very much not a “use[r] of tone-deaf metaphors, the second or third easiest thought.” Paying close attention is a poet’s duty, so when her daughter asks “What does the moon mean?” she knows damn well to use it in a poem. Also, as she states, “Extra credit for imagining / a snow caterpillar, or lightning a foot deep.”
Having laid out, Alexander Pope’s “Essay on Criticism”-style, her list of requirements for the would-be poet, the subsequent eighty pages of her book show us exactly how it’s done. By turns witty, woeful, and wise, Kelley were the startling declarations, wild metaphors, zany confessions, gorgeous music, and spot-on imagery. It's a book I know I will return to for comfort and reassurance that even though a lot is wrong with the world, there's a helluva lot to be grateful for.
May 12, 2017
A lavish book in every way: beautifully designed and sized to accommodate Kelley's long lines, and poems that offer a range of pleasures, from small intimate moments to ambitious stretches for meaning; joy to grief; new words offered with an eye and ear for unexpected delight; humor--yes, humor!--that animates nearly every poem without rendering them comic; and a feel for language that is natural, graceful, warm, inviting, and curious.
I have read with Tina Kelley on many occasions and am always struck by how the listening audience responds to her poems, with attention and evident enjoyment--people who are not themselves poets or writers, but who are simply seeking something from poetry, and seem to find it in her work.
I have read with Tina Kelley on many occasions and am always struck by how the listening audience responds to her poems, with attention and evident enjoyment--people who are not themselves poets or writers, but who are simply seeking something from poetry, and seem to find it in her work.
July 7, 2017
3.75 stars. I'm new to Tina Kelley and was swayed into this book by the journalism angle it promised. I definitely wanted more of that than was in this collection - I love when poetry and news/statistics collide, but that didn't really happen here to the degree I was expecting. Nevertheless, it's a great collection with some engaging narratives. It's got that larger-paperback-to-accommodate-long-lined-poems appeal that tends to draw me in without fail, these days. Stronger first half than second half, imo, but there was definitely never a point where the poems went stale.
November 25, 2017
4.25 stars
While the entirety of the collection did not live up to the brilliance of the intro poems (seriously one of my favorite groupings of poems ever), it was still an enriching and satisfying read. She kind of set the bar too high for herself :P.
Kelley writes with a blend of humor, wonder, and realism. To call these poems "slice of life" wouldn't really do them justice, but I guess that's technically accurate. Her poems have that sense of optimistic melancholy that I love, and is hard to find. She takes the good and bad and weaves them into something stark and wonderful.
This snippet from the opening poem, "The Possible Utility of Poets," exemplifies her style perfectly:
"Maybe Earth's an only child / demanding attention, for so long the one planet supporting life. / Small price for the smell of hair just in from a winter walk."
I really appreciated the way she shared her joy for the diversity of human experience, the richness of nature, and even the subtle wonder of material objects.
Overall Abloom & Awry is a strong, tender collection, definitely worth reading and savoring over. I will for sure be seeking out other writing from Kelley.
While the entirety of the collection did not live up to the brilliance of the intro poems (seriously one of my favorite groupings of poems ever), it was still an enriching and satisfying read. She kind of set the bar too high for herself :P.
Kelley writes with a blend of humor, wonder, and realism. To call these poems "slice of life" wouldn't really do them justice, but I guess that's technically accurate. Her poems have that sense of optimistic melancholy that I love, and is hard to find. She takes the good and bad and weaves them into something stark and wonderful.
This snippet from the opening poem, "The Possible Utility of Poets," exemplifies her style perfectly:
"Maybe Earth's an only child / demanding attention, for so long the one planet supporting life. / Small price for the smell of hair just in from a winter walk."
I really appreciated the way she shared her joy for the diversity of human experience, the richness of nature, and even the subtle wonder of material objects.
Overall Abloom & Awry is a strong, tender collection, definitely worth reading and savoring over. I will for sure be seeking out other writing from Kelley.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews