Five Kingdoms

by Kelle Groom

Poetry. "Kelle Groom's poems are like underwater songs, sung from the submerged continent of the inner life, the life we don't often expose to the outer world, the one we don't speak of. They have the bemused slightly sad knowledge of lived life, but mainly, these poems come from the muse of soulfulness, they are 'tender-minded'--they balance honesty with perceptiveness of others, which is the true sign of tenderness. They are wry, artful, sad, loving, and moving. A true pleasure"--Tony Hoagland.

Genres: Poetry

120 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2009

About the author

Kelle Groom is a poet and memoirist. Her memoir, "I Wore the Ocean in the Shape of a Girl," is forthcoming from The Free Press, a division of Simon & Schuster in June 2011. She is the author of three poetry collections: "Five Kingdoms" (Anhinga Press, 2010); "Luckily" (Anhinga, 2006); and "Underwater City" (University Press of Florida, 2004). Her work has appeared in Best American Poetry 2010, The New Yorker, Ploughshares, and Poetry, among others, and has received special mention in the Pushcart Prize 2010 and Best American Non-Required Reading 2007 anthologies. She is the recipient of both a 2010 and a 2006 Florida Book Award and grant awards from the State of Florida, Division of Cultural Affairs, New Forms Florida, and the Barbara Deming Memorial Fund. Groom has been a Norma Millay Ellis Fellow at the Millay Colony for the Arts, a William Randolph Hearst Foundation Fellow at the American Antiquarian Society, a Tennessee Williams Scholar at the Sewanee Writers' Conference, and has been awarded residency fellowships from Atlantic Center for the Arts and Virginia Center for the Creative Arts. She has taught writing at the University of Central Florida and is a contributing editor for The Florida Review.
Kelle Groom website: http://www.KelleGroom.com
Kelle Groom facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/IWoretheOcean...

Reviews

[Catherine · Rating 5 out of 5]

The ocean is a beautiful theme and character in this collection. I read this by the pool, and the poems fit perfectly within the landscape of the day. Yes, some were sad, and, yes, all were contemplative. My favorites were those in the first section which really made me think--they began rooted in one place and then flew off to another. The way art and history inspired many of the poems piqued my interest, as did the sincerity of the more personal-seeming works. I highly recommend this book.

[Pamela Tatum · Rating 5 out of 5]

no one does it better than Kelle! brilliant!

[Alex · Rating 3 out of 5]

I am not a poet, but I had to read this for my Creative Writing Class.

It was interesting.

All I can say