October 17, 2001

Contact: Ken Irby, KU English department, (785) 864-3118.

Poet who inspired Imagination and Place conference to read at KU Oct. 22

LAWRENCE -- Robert Kelly, renowned poet, fiction writer and essayist, will read his work at 4:30 p.m., Monday, Oct. 22, in the Centennial Room of the Kansas Union at the University of Kansas. The event is free to the public.

Kelly is in Lawrence for the Imagination and Place Conference at the Lawrence Arts Center, 200 W. Ninth. His essay "Hypnogeography" was the inspiration for the conference, which will take place Oct. 19 and 20.

Kelly books include "The Time of Voice: Poems 1994-1996"; "Red Actions: Selected Poems 1960-1993"; "Queen of Terrors," a collection of stories; "The Scorpions," a novel; and "In Time," essays. His poems are represented in such recent major anthologies as the "Norton Postmodern American Poetry" and "Poems for the Millennium." He and John Ashbery carry the poet-in-residence title at Bard College.

The KU English department is sponsoring Kelly's visit to KU.

From Kelly's poem "Ode to Language":

Break me. Come to me
with burrs in your fur, tell me
where everything has ever been.
Growl at me if I sleep, wake me
with your dependable craziness.
Birds plummet and you fetch them
wet in your mouth. Women weep
in San Francisco. Only you

are ever different.