Karla Kelsey
Charles B Degenstein Professor of English & Creative Writing
Education
MFA, University of Iowa
BA, University of California Los Angeles
PHD, University of Denver
About Me
Karla Kelsey is the author of five full-length collections of poetry, most recentlyOn Certainty(Omnidawn Press, 2023); a collection of speculative essays,Of Sphere(Essay Press, 2017); and an experimental novel,Transcendental Factory: For Mina Loy(Winter Editions, 2024). She is the editor ofLost Writings: Two Novels by Mina Loy(Yale University Press, 2024). Her Poems and prose have appeared in journals such asBomb, Fence, Conjunctions, New American Writing, The Boston Review, The Colorado Review, The Denver Quarterly, Verse,andTupelo Quarterly. Her critical essays on poetry, poetics, and pedagogy have appeared in anthologies and literary journals. From 2010-2017 she editedThe Constant Critic,Fence Books’ online journal of poetry reviews. With Aaron McCollough she currently co-publishes SplitLevel Texts, a press specializing in book-length hybrid genre projects. An H.D. Fellow at Yale University’s Beinecke Library and the recipient of a Fulbright Scholars grant, she has taught in Budapest, Hungary, and is Professor of English & Creative Writing at 体育买球 University’s Writers Institute. More information can be found on herwebsite.
Karla Kelsey on teaching at SU: “I have been teaching in the creative writing program at 体育买球 since 2005. One of the main reasons it is so special to me has to do with the fact that I grew up a serious dancer and just adored being in the ballet studio. While writers have a more isolated artistic practice than dancers, being at SU is close to that studio experience. I love being a practicing writer among other writers, colleagues and students alike. If you want to have your creative spirit nurtured, creative writing at 体育买球 is for you!”
Professional Experience
EDUCATION
Ph.D. Literature and Creative Writing. University of Denver. Denver, CO. May 2005.
M.F.A. Poetry. Iowa Writers Workshop. Iowa City, IA. May 2001.
B.A. Literature and Philosophy. UCLA. Los Angeles, CA. December 1999.
EMPLOYMENT
Full-Time Positions
体育买球 University, Department of English & Creative Writing
2018 to Present Professor
2011 to 2018 Associate Professor
2006 to 2011 Assistant Professor
2005-2006 Visiting Assistant Professor
Lectureships
Fall 2012 Visiting Assistant Professor, Eötvös Collegium, Budapest Department of American Studies
Spring 2011 Fulbright Visiting Assistant Eötvös Loránd University, Professor Budapest Department of American Studies
TEACHING AND RESEARCH INTERESTS
Poetry / Poetics / Women’s Experimental Writing / Ecopoetics / Image-Text Writing / Lyric Prose / Hybrid Writing / Critical Theory / Small Press Publishing
POETRY BOOKS
Blood Feather.North Adams, MA: Tupelo Press. Forthcoming Fall 2020.
A Conjoined Book.Richmond, CA: Omnidawn Press, 2014.
Iteration Nets.Boise, ID: Ahsahta Press, 2010.
Knowledge, Forms, the Aviary.Boise, ID: Ahsahta Press, 2006.
Selected by Carolyn Forché for the 2005 Sawtooth Prize.
ESSAY BOOKS
Of Sphere.Laramie, WY. Essay Press. Forthcoming November 2017.
Selected by Carla Harryman for the 2016 Essay Press Prize.
CHAPBOOKS
Into the Eyes of Lost Storms.Fayetteville, AR: Narwhal Press, 2009.
Three Movements. Northampton, MA: Pilot Press, 2009.
Little Dividing Doors in the Mind.Santa Fe, NM: Noemi Press, 2005.
SELECT PUBLICATIONS IN ANTHOLOGIES
Poetry in Anthologies
“from winter dark with shades of blue.”February: an anthology.Ed. Paul Legault. St. Louis, MO: Washington University Department of Creative Writing, 2015: 6 pages.
“fromA Conjoined Book.” The Arcadia Project.Ed. Joshua Corey and G.C. Waldrep. Boise ID: Boise State University Ahsahta Press, 2012: 114-120.
“Sonnet 114”The Sonnets: Rewriting Shakespeare.Ed. Paul Legault and Sharmila Cohen, Callicoon NY: Nightboat Books, 2012: 45.
Hybrid Genre Work in Journals
“An Otherwise of Consciousness.” Jacket 2. April 2018:
https://jacket2.org/poems/otherwise-consciousness
“fromThe Budapest Notebooks.”Tupelo Quarterly.Issue 10. October, 2016:
https://www.tupeloquarterly.com/from-the-budapest-notebooks-by-karla-kelsey/
“Of Sphere.”Verse.Vol. 31, 2015: 163-193.
“—echoache.”Evening Will Come: A Monthly Journal of Poetics.Issue 47. November, 2014: https://www.thevolta.org/ewc47-kkelsey-p1.html.
“Interval.”Web Conjunctions.09.03.2013, 2013: https://conjunctions.com/webcon/kelsey13.htm
“A Practice in Beveled Light.”English Language Notes.Department of English, University of Colorado at Boulder. 50.01 Spring/Summer, 2012: 29-32.
PUBLICATIONS: CRITICAL PROSE
Prose: Chapters in Books
“Barbara Guest’sSeeking Air.”The Poet’s Novel.Ed. Laynie Browne. Nightboat Books, Forthcoming 2020.
“To Gesture at Absence: A Reading-With.”Anne Carson: Ecstatic Lyre.Ed. Joshua Marie Wilkinson, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2015: 88-93.
“Articulations of Artifice in the Work of Mary Jo Bang.”Eleven More America
Woman Poets in the 21stCentury. Ed. Claudia Rankine and Lisa Sewell
Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 2012: 34-56.
“Lineation in the Land of the New Sentence.”A Broken Thing: Poets on the Line.Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, 2010.
“Teaching Writing through the Sonnet Tradition.”Poets on Teachinged. Joshua Marie Wilkinson. Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, 2010.
Recent Criticism, Essays, and Reviews
“Fantastic Women.”Bomb.May, 2020
https://bombmagazine.org/articles/virtual-viewing-fantastic-women-reviewed
“Madeline Gins.”Hyperallergic.May, 2020
https://hyperallergic.com/540537/questioning-the-very-form-of-the-book
“Lyn Hejinian’sLife on Mars.”Hyperallergic. August, 2019
“Frederike Mayröcker’sScardanelli.”Hyperallergic.December, 2018
https://hyperallergic.com/470141/scardanelli-friederike-mayrocker-jonathan-larson-2018
“Rewriting Trauma.” Review of Catherine Taylor.Los Angeles Review of Books
Blog.April 2018.https://blog.lareviewofbooks.org/reviews/rewriting-trauma
violence/
“Missing Contexts: The Pioneering Work of Anne Halprin, Simone Forti, and
Yvonne Rainer.”Bomb Magazine.September 2017:
https://bombmagazine.org/article/899298/missing-contexts-the-pioneering-work
of-halprin-forti-and-rainer
RECENT GRANTS, HONORS, AWARDS
2019 Beinecke Library, Yale: H.D. Fellowship in English and American Literature
2019 体育买球 University: John C. Horn Award for Scholarship and Service
2017 体育买球 University: University Research Grant (Course Release)
2016 Essay Press Prize (Carla Harryman, Judge)
2014-2015 体育买球 University: Faculty Research Grant (Course Release)
2013-2014 体育买球 University Mini Grant (Travel to Bucharest, Romania for research)
Spring 2012 体育买球 University Faculty Research Grant (Course Release)
Fall 2011 体育买球 University Mini Grant (Travel to Budapest, Hungary for research)
Spring 2011 Fulbright Lectureship. ELTE University. Budapest, Hungary
Spring 2010 Poetry Society of America Cecil Hemley Award for a poem on a philosophical theme (Forrest Gander, Judge)
SELECTED REVIEWS OF WORK
Reviews:A Conjoined Book
Shaw, Kent.“A Conjoined Bookby Karla Kelsey.”The Rumpus.April 9, 201
https://therumpus.net/2014/04/a-conjoined-book-by-karla-kelsey/
Landry, Benjamin. “A Conjoined Book.”The Colorado Review.May 14, 2014.
https://coloradoreview.colostate.edu/reviews/a-conjoined-book/
Savich, Zach. “A Conjoined Book.”Black Ocean Micro Review Monday.August 4, 2014.
https://www.blackocean.org/blog/2014/8/4/micro-review-monday-karla-kelsey-by-zach-savich
“A Conjoined Book: Aftermath//Become Tree, Become Bird.”Publisher’s Weekly.April 2014.
https://www.publishersweekly.com/978-1-890650-94-0
Kyle, Catherine. “A Conjoined Book.”Verse Magazine.Monday September 22, 2014.
https://versemag.blogspot.com/2014/09/new-review-of-karla-kelsey.html
Reviews:Iteration Nets
Colorado Review.Damiani, Jesse. “Iteration Nets.” Vol. 39, No. 2.
Poetry Northwest.Savich, Zach. “Forms that Change.”
https://www.poetrynw.org/zach-savich-forms-that-change/
Reviews:Knowledge, Forms, the Aviary
Cutbank.Svalina, Mathias. “Knowledge, Forms, the Aviary.” November 4, 2006.
https://www.cutbankonline.org/cutbank-blog/2006/11/knowledge-forms-the-aviary-by-karla-kelsey
Bookslut.Cronk, Olivia. “Knowledge, Forms, the Aviary.” June 2006.
https://www.bookslut.com/poetry/2006_06_009064.php
CONFERENCE PRESENTATIONS AND READINGS
Selected Poetry Readings 2014-Present
Bucknell University. Lewisburg, PA, October 2019.
University of Eastern Michigan. Yipsilanti, MI, February 2018.
University of Denver, Denver, CO, November 2017.
McNally Jackson Books. New York, NY, October 2017.
Poet’s House. New York, NY, October 2015.
Unnameable Books. Brooklyn, NY, July 2015.
Iowa Writers Workshop. Iowa City, IA, February 2015.
Fort Gondo Arts Collective. St Louis, MO, November 2014.
Shippensburg University. Shippensburg, PA, November, 2014.
Poet’s House. New York, NY, October 2014.
Belladonna Collective. Brooklyn, NY, October 2014.
Fall for the Book Festival. George Mason University, Fairfax VA, September 2014.
Conference Presentations (Poetics/Criticism)
“The Radical Bodies of Bernadette Mayer’sDesiresand Gail Scott’sMy Paris:A Tissuing.” Communal Presence: New Narrative Writing Today. Berkley, CA, October 2017.
“On Claudia Rankine’sCitizen.”Plymouth University Poetry and Philosophy Conference. Plymouth, England, May 2016.
“On EditingDenver Quarterly.” Associated Writing Programs Conference. St Paul, Minneapolis, April 2015.
“Ethics and Poetics: an Ecological Mode.” Associated Writing Programs Conference. Seattle, WA, March 2014.
EDITORIAL PROJECTS
2011- Editor/Publisher/Founder
Present Split Level Texts
www.splitleveltexts.com
I co-founded SplitLevel Texts in 2011 with Aaron McCollough. We publish two full-length books each year in print editions. The books are experimental poetry and hybrid genre works that interrogate the aesthetic and ethical norms of American culture. Our list includes prestigious internationally renowned writers as well as mid-career writers. As editor and publisher I acquire manuscripts and work with authors on content editing and proofing. I also typeset all of the manuscripts and work to market and distribute the books via Small Press Distribution and independent bookstores.
Carla HarrymanA Voice to Perform
Safaa Fathy (trans. with Pierre Joris)Revolution goes through walls
Bernadette MayerThe Desires of Mothers to Please Others in Letters
(co-published with Nightboat Books)
Elizabeth ZubaDECOHERENT
Martin Corless-Smiththis fatal looking glass
Laynie BrownePRACTICE
Lucy IvesThe Worldkillers
Maged ZahirIf reality doesn’t work out
Carla Harryman:W—/M—
Catherine Meng:The Longest Total Solar Eclipse of the Century
Jerome Rothenberg:A Cruel Nirvana
Alan Gilbert:The Treatment of Monuments
Winter 2010- Editor
2017The Constant Critic
www.constantcritic.com
As editor ofThe Constant CriticI worked with a stable of five writers who develop reviews of between 1,200-1,800 words of recently-released books of contemporary poetry. Since spring of 2011 I have brought on board three new reviewers to increase diversity and point of view. My editing work entailed book selection, content development, proofing, and formatting for on-line viewing.
Scholarly and Creative Works
Publications
On Certainty
Omnidawn Press, 2023
In the poems ofOn Certainty, an unnamed woman in a strangely familiar dystopia narrates a story of power and decline, where the Tyrant has gained ascendency and the Philosopher is dying. Here, the Tyrant rules over a decimated ecology filled with android deer, burnt towns, and exhausted individuals dependent on virtual reality augmentation. In choosing whether to take the Philosopher’s place in a struggle against the Tyrant, the narrator must consider how her decision may perpetuate the currently existing catastrophic systems.
Blood Feather
Tupelo Press, 2020
An actress. A thinker. A filmmaker. Built of archives and the imagination, the three fictive women narrating Blood Feather articulate a feminist philosophy of art-making and life-making for our fractured world. Kelsey engages the given by calling on female artists of the past—Lilian Gish, Maya Deren, Maria Tallchief, and the architect Eileen Gray, among others—to join this drama of character and form. Here, structures of the past and ambitions for our future shape Blood Feather’s personae as they confirm and resist, collude with and attempt to reinvent, the cultural and personal histories that surround them.
Of Sphere
Essay Press, 2017
Selected by Carla Harryman for the Essay Press Prize
“Through her challenge to dug-in patriarchal logics, Kelsey choreographs a contemporary vision that follows in the experimental tradition of earlier modern feminist essays, including Virginia Woolf’s Three Guineas, H.D.’s Tribute to Freud, and Hélène Cixous’ ‘The Laugh of the Medusa.’ Kelsey brings an urgency to this tradition through her attention to the destructive human
impact on the earth, ecological crisis, and her vision of another way to inhabit the world.”
—Carla Harryman
A Conjoined Book
Omnidawn Press, 2014
“In answer to impossible questions I borrow the story of bones burned.” In this astonishing and carefully structured “double book” Karla Kelsey interweaves an extensive mediation on The Juniper Tree with a lyric exploration of trauma, violence, and memory. There is no way to have one without the other: cultural artifact, individual story—Kelsey shows us how these realms are not divisible…I’ve never read anything like it and it’s changed me.
—Julie Carr
Iteration Nets
Ahsahta Press, 2010
“In this uncompromisingly inventive triptych, Kelsey shows us how she ‘threw away abstraction’ in order to meditate on what inhabits relation. From sonnet cycle, to prose sonnet, to archipelagoed pages, every poem discretely recalibrates the way replicating lines constitute experience, its gestures, its enunciative cloakings, its denser renderings.”
—Jean-Jacques Poucel
Knowledge, Forms, the Aviary
Ahsahta Press, 2006
Selected by Carolyn Forché for the Sawtooth Poetry Prize
“Kelsey writes what it is to know, of ‘what we become/ when the universe is seen in lights of its generation.’ We are, in this work, in the midst of things, and as Plato’s Socrates has it, ‘the eye becomes filled with vision and now sees, and becomes, not vision but a seeing eye.’”
—Carolyn Forché