Kelly, Robert
KELLY, Robert
Nationality: American. Born: Brooklyn, New York, 24 September 1935. Education: City College of New York, A.B. 1955; Columbia University, New York, 1955–58. Family: Married 1) Joan Elizabeth Laskin in 1955 (divorced 1969); 2) Helen Belinky in 1969 (divorced 1978); 3) Charlotte Mandell in 1993. Career: Translator, Continental Translation Service, New York, 1956–58; lecturer in English, Wagner College, New York, 1960–61. Instructor in German, 1961–62, instructor in English, 1962–64, assistant professor, 1964–69, associate professor, 1969–74, professor of English, 1974–86, director of Writing Program, 1980–93, and since 1986 Asher B. Edelman Professor of literature, Avery Graduate School of the Arts, Bard College, Annandale-on-Hudson, New York. Assistant professor of English, State University of New York, Buffalo, summer 1964; visiting lecturer, Tufts University, Medford, Massachusetts, 1966–67; poet-in-residence, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, 1971–72, University of Kansas, Lawrence, 1975, and Dickinson College, Carlisle, Pennsylvania, 1976. Editor, Chelsea Review, New York, 1957–60; founding editor, with George Economou, Trobar magazine, 1960–64, and Trobar Books, 1962–65, New York; contributing editor, Caterpillar, New York, 1969–72; editor, Los 1, 1977. Since 1964 editor, Matter magazine and Matter publishing company, New York, later Annandale-on-Hudson; contributing editor, Alcheringa: Ethnopoetics, New York, since 1977, and Sulfur, Pasadena, 1981–82. Awards: New York City Writers Conference fellowship, 1967; Los Angeles Times book prize, 1980; American Academy award, 1986. D.Litt.: State University of New York, Oneonta, 1994. Address: Department of English, Bard College, Annandale-on-Hudson, New York 12504, U.S.A.
Publications
Poetry
Armed Descent. New York, Hawks Well Press, 1961.
Her Body Against Time (bilingual edition). Mexico City, El Corno Emplumado, 1963.
Round Dances. New York, Trobar, 1964.
Tabula. Lawrence, Kansas, Dialogue Press, 1964.
Enstasy. Annandale-on-Hudson, New York, Matter, 1964.
Matter/Fact/Sheet/1. Buffalo, New York, Matter, 1964.
Matter/Fact/Sheet/2. Annandale-on-Hudson, New York, Matter, 1964.
Lunes, with Sightings by Jerome Rothenberg. New York, Hawks Well Press, 1964.
Lectiones. Placitas, New Mexico, Duende Press, 1965.
Words in Service. New Haven, Connecticut, Robert Lamberton, 1966.
Weeks. Mexico City, El Corno Emplumado, 1966.
Songs XXIV. Cambridge, Massachusetts, Pym Randall Press, 1967.
Twenty Poems. Annandale-on-Hudson, New York, Matter, 1967.
Devotions. Annandale-on-Hudson, New York, Salitter, 1967.
Axon Dendron Tree. Annandale-on-Hudson, New York, Matter, 1967.
Crooked Bridge Love Society. Annandale-on-Hudson, New York, Salitter, 1967.
A Joining: A Sequence for H.D. Los Angeles, Black Sparrow Press, 1967.
Alpha. Gambier, Ohio, Pothanger Press, 1968.
Finding the Measure. Los Angeles, Black Sparrow Press, 1968.
From the Common Shore, Book 5. Great Neck, New York, George Robert Minkoff, 1968.
Songs I-XXX. Cambridge, Massachusetts, Pym Randall Press, 1969.
Sonnets. Los Angeles, Black Sparrow Press, 1969.
We Are the Arbiters of Beast Desire. Berkeley, California, MBVL, 1969.
A California Journal. London, Big Venus, 1969.
The Common Shore, Books I-V: A Long Poem about America in Time. Los Angeles, Black Sparrow Press, 1969.
Kali Yuga. London, Cape Goliard Press, 1970; New York, Grossman, 1971.
Flesh: Dream: Book. Los Angeles, Black Sparrow Press, 1971.
Ralegh. Los Angeles, Black Sparrow Press, 1972.
The Pastorals. Los Angeles, Black Sparrow Press, 1972.
Reading Her Notes. Privately printed, 1972.
The Tears of Edmund Burke. Annandale-on-Hudson, New York, Printed by Helen, 1973.
Whaler Frigate Clippership. Lawrence, Kansas, Tansy, 1973.
The Mill of Particulars. Los Angeles, Black Sparrow Press, 1973.
The Belt. Storrs, University of Connecticut Library, 1974.
The Loom. Los Angeles, Black Sparrow Press, 1975.
Sixteen Odes. Santa Barbara, California, Black Sparrow Press, 1976.
The Lady of. Santa Barbara, California, Black Sparrow Press, 1977.
The Convections. Santa Barbara, California, Black Sparrow Press, 1978.
The Book of Persephone. New Paltz, New York, Treacle Press, 1978; revised edition, New Paltz, New York, McPherson, 1983.
The Cruise of the Pnyx. Barrytown, New York, Station Hill Press, 1979.
Kill the Messenger Who Brings Bad News. Santa Barbara, California, Black Sparrow Press, 1979.
Sentence. Barrytown, New York, Station Hill Press, 1980.
The Alchemist to Mercury, edited by Jed Rasula. Richmond, California, North Atlantic, 1981.
Spiritual Exercises. Santa Barbara, California, Black Sparrow Press, 1981.
Mulberry Women. Berkeley, California, Hiersoux Powers Thomas, 1982.
Under Words. Santa Barbara, California, Black Sparrow Press, 1983.
Thor's Thrush. Oakland, California, Coincidence Press, 1984.
Not This Island Music. Santa Rosa, California, Black Sparrow Press, 1987.
The Flowers of Unceasing Coincidence. Barrytown, New York, Station Hill, 1988.
Oahu. Rhinebeck. St. Lazaire Press, 1988.
A Strange Market. Santa Rosa, California, Black Sparrow Press, 1992.
Mont Blanc. Ann Arbor, Michigan, Other Wind Press, 1994.
Red Actions: Selected Poems, 1960–1993. Santa Rosa, California, Black Sparrow Press, 1995.
The Time of Voice: Poems, 1994–1996. Santa Rosa, California, Black Sparrow Press, 1998.
The Garden of Distances: Drawings and Poems. Kingston, New York, Documentext/McPherson and Co., 1999.
Runes. Ann Arbor, Michigan, Other Wind Press, 1999.
Recording: Finding the Measure, Black Sparrow Press, 1968.
Plays
The Well Wherein a Deer's Head Bleeds (produced New York, 1964). Published in A Play and Two Poems, with Diane Wakoski and Ron Loewinsohn, Los Angeles, Black Sparrow Press, 1968.
Eros and Psyche, music by Elie Yarden (produced New Paltz, New York, 1971). Privately printed, 1971.
Novels
The Scorpions. New York, Doubleday, 1967; London, Calder and Boyars, 1969.
Cities. West Newbury, Massachusetts, Frontier Press, 1971.
Short Stories
Wheres. Santa Barbara, California, Black Sparrow Press, 1978.
A Transparent Tree: Ten Fictions. New Paltz, New York, McPherson, 1985.
Doctor of Silence. Kingston, New York, McPherson, 1988.
Cat Scratch Fever: Fictions. Kingston, New York, 1990.
Queen of Terrors: Fictions. Kingston, New York, McPherson, 1994.
Other
Statement. Los Angeles, Black Sparrow Press, 1968.
In Time (essays). West Newbury, Massachusetts, Frontier Press, 1971.
Sulphur. Privately printed, 1972.
A Line of Sight. Los Angeles, Black Sparrow Press, 1974.
How Do I Make Up My Mind, Lord? (for children). Minneapolis, Augsburg, 1982.
Under Words. Santa Barbara, California, Black Sparrow Press, 1983.
Editor, with Paris Leary, A Controversy of Poets: An Anthology of Contemporary American Poetry. New York, Doubleday, 1965.
Editor, The Journals, by Paul Blackburn. Los Angeles, Black Sparrow Press, 1975.
*Bibliography: By Jed Rasula and Robert Bertholf, in Credences (Buffalo, New York), winter 1984/85.
Manuscript Collections: State University of New York, Buffalo; Kent State University, Ohio.
Critical Studies: By Paul Blackburn, in Kulchur (New York), 1962; American Poetry from the Puritans to the Present by Hyatt Waggoner, Boston, Houghton Mifflin, 1968; review by Diane Wakoski, in Poetry (Chicago), 1972; Robert Kelly issue of Vort (Bloomington, Indiana), 1974, and Credences (Buffalo, New York), winter 1984/85; "The Resurrection of Pan" by Paul Christensen, in Southwest Review (Dallas), 78(4), autumn 1993; "The Charred Heart of Polyphemus: Tantric Ecstasy and Shamanic Violence in Robert Kelly's 'The Loom'" by Edward Schelb, in Contemporary Literature (Madison, Wisconsin), 36(2), summer 1995; "A Rose to Look At: An Interview with Robert Kelly" by Larry McCaffery, in his Some Other Fluency: Interviews with Innovative American Authors, Philadelphia, University of Pennsylvania Press, 1996; The Persuit of Persephone: The Healing Image of Robert Kelley (dissertation) by Robert Kevin Gaither, Texas A&M University, 1996.
Robert Kelly comments:
What help can I give the reader who would come to my work? First, tell him it is not my work, only work itself, somehow arisen through (or in spite of) my instrumentality. My personality is its enemy, only distracts. But what is there for the reader who reads to find the man? He will find the man. The man is always there, the stink of him, the hope and fear he confuses with himself, the beauty of him, struggle, dim intuitions of a glory that is not personal but that only persons can inhabit and share. That we are human in the world and share our thoughts.
And this sharing of thought, perception, is what becomes the world. The world is our shared thought.
But in language the unperceived or newly perceived can arise to break the fabric of the ordinary consensus of our lives. News from nowhere, a new handle for an old day.
Invited to introduce my work to the general reader, never! The specific reader, I rehearse for our mutual benefit two answers my work has given, and I here transcribe. 1967. Prefix to Finding the Measure: Finding the measure is finding the mantram, is finding the moon, as index of measure, is finding the moon's source; if that source is Sun, finding the measure is finding the natural articulation of ideas. The organism of the macrocosm, the organism of language, the organism of I combine in ceaseless naturing to propagate a fourth, the poem, from their trinity. Style is death. Finding the measure is finding a freedom from that death, a way out, a movement forward. Finding the measure is finding the specific music of the hour, the synchronous consequence of the motion of the whole world. (Measure as distinct from meter, from any precompositional grid or matrix super-imposed upon the fact of the poem's own growth "under hand.") 1973. Prefix to The Mill of Particulars: Language is the only genetics. Field "in which a man is understood & understands" & becomes what he thinks, becomes what he says following the argument. When it is written that Hermes or Thoth invented language, it is meant that language is itself the psychopomp, who leads the Individuality out of Eternity into the conditioned world of Time, a world that language makes by discussing it. So the hasty road & path of arrow must lead up from language again & in language the work be done, work of light, beyond. Through manipulation and derangement of ordinary language (parole), the conditioned world is changed, weakened in its associative links, its power to hold an unconscious world-view (consensus) together. Eternity, which is always there, looms beyond the grid of speech. I have spoken a little about my motives and my intentions. I have not presumed to speak about the work itself, which must, true to its name, do its own work and try to lure the reader to dance with it.
* * *Robert Kelly is an extraordinarily prolific poet. By the 1990s, when he had reached his mid-fifties, he had already published some fifty volumes, many of them quite substantial. Kelly's work is densely allusive, frequently compressed in style and expression, unconventional in syntax. His poems present particular difficulties to the reader, yet it must be asserted that more often than not they reward the reader's efforts. In a poet so prolific, though, there are areas of weakness: The Common Shore, for example, lacks the organic coherence of his best work, and for once Kelly's learning seems less than fully absorbed and rearticulated. He has, however, also produced a series of volumes that claim a significant place in the American poetry of the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s, including Finding the Measure, Songs I-XXX, Axon Dendron Tree, The Loom, The Mill of Particulars, The Alchemist to Mercury, Spiritual Exercises, Under Words, and Not This Island Music.
For Kelly the poem is a process of search conducted through image and idea, an act of discovery that seeks its proper and natural form. At the center of his work is a vision of wholeness, and in terms of form his best poems are exemplary enactments of Coleridgean organic (as opposed to mechanic) form. The vision and the form are joined:
the shape of a man proceeds from all sides to center
and he is the star whose body is called movement
and in his hand the sun puts out branches
leaves and petals break out of silver
the corn is eaten, the animal howls, the sun flowers.
In the endnote to the 1971 collection Flesh: Dream: Book, Kelly explicates "the three great sources of human information" named in the book's title: the flesh—the universe as accessible to sensory experience; the dream—the associations and fusions of vision and dream; the book—human learning. The excitement of Kelly's work, at its best, is the effectiveness with which he integrates all of these sources of "information," the way in which the poetry refuses to exclude any of the three and finds language and form for all. Kelly is a learned poet who is never merely bookish, an erotic poet who thinks at all times of the spirit, a visionary poet rooted in the sensual.
Many of Kelly's central concerns as a poet are set out in his book of essays titled In Time, a good preparation for an exploration of the poems themselves. For Kelly the poet is "a scientist of holistic understanding / a scholar to whom all data whatsoever are of use" and "the DISCOVERER OF RELATION / redintigrator, / explorer of ultimate connection / & connectedness in among & all." In this quest for "relation," Kelly's major tools and processes include the mental and symbolic activities of alchemy and the Hermetic tradition, geography, history, and etymology. Alchemy is a model of transformation and perception, as is the recording of dreams. Kelly's work is fired by a sense of curiosity that is both intellectual and erotic. A declaration such as the following is far from casual in its employment of symbolic language: "Since we are men, in the human scale of time & space relationships, the discovery is of ourselves through the visible, of the visible through ourselves. The gateway is the visible; but we must go in." The "entrance" is pursued and effected through an enormously wide-ranging examination of human culture and through a ruthlessly honest process of self-analysis, the two being articulated in flexible verse possessed of an individual grace.
Kelly's work constitutes a particularly American extension of the romantic poetry of the "egotistical sublime":
… the subjective alone
has the value
of transcending time. And by a paradox
of being utterly personal
it transcends the limitations
of cultural presupposition …
In the precision and fullness with which it records the movements (and the ecstasies) of a particular and perceptive mind, there resides the "utterly personal," yet transcendent, quality of Kelly's poetry. God and sexuality, human emotion and cosmic motions, flesh and spirit dance together to and in an embracing music. The dance is perceived and articulated when its measure (and the poem's) is found: the "prefix" of Finding the Measure tells us that "finding the measure is finding the mantram / is finding the moon … / … is finding the specific music of the hour, / the synchronous / consequence of the motion of the whole world." Kelly's longer poems are sustained inquiries after that measure, and occasionally it is also found, perfected as it were, in his shorter poems, as in "A Measure":
Some nights the moon straight overhead is not far
it is a node in the spine, a woman
could easily reach it combing her hair.
—Glyn Pursglove