“My thoughts have no place / to go, except more inward.” These lines that open Kevin McLellan’s “Winterberries,” the long final poem of SKY. POND. MOUTH might serve as epitome of the book entire. A radical interiority marks this lyric vision, ushering us all in to the common crisis not one of us knows how to share: to be a self, one who says I, in this body I have, which is mine and no one else’s. Here, as a fine poet is fated to know, the self isn’t singular, but like the housefly that sees with a compound-eye, the self is a compound-I.
In poems that navigate the poetic inheritance of experimental queer poetries—Ashbery, Schuyler, Stein—McLellan records the inner echoes of mind and body: language and desire, illness and eros, flora and fauna, memory and moment, all interpenetrate and blur in the weird-wonder of life’s within-ness. With tender care and sharp wit, McLellan gives us one of poetry’s primary gifts: where we are most alone, he sees us, sings for and with us, and leaves us less alone.”
Dan Beachy-Quick is the author of Variations on Dawn and Dusk, longlisted for the 2019 National Book Award for Poetry, and several other books.
“Kevin McLellan’s Sky. Pond. Mouth is my new favorite book of poems. I could read it every day forever for its tender curiosity about the geranium on the table and the two men dressed alike in the laundromat, its patient pacing through the quietly threatening world. Every line and metaphor is adventurous and thorough in documenting the longing and doubt invested in every moving and every still thing. The earth is dying but we don’t notice it, someone says in the poem “Blue,” but this book notices, and it notices the housefly, and the crumpled paper, and the desire and distance between men—all clearly visible through and against McLellan’s quiet wisdom.”
Lisa Lewis author of Silent Treatment, winner of the National Poetry Series, and several other books.
“WOJNAROWICZ IN CAMBRIDGE” EXHIBITION 9/14/2022-10/26/2022: MIT Rotch Library Gallery, 77 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, MA 02139
https://kevmclellan.com/about/photography-wojnarowicz-in-cambridge/
VIDEO
Dick (2020) showed at the 2022 LGBTQ+ Los Angeles Film Festival (won Best Short Form Short), 2021 Tag! Queer Shorts Festival, 2021 Berlin Short Film Festival, the 2021 Vancouver Queer Film Festival, and the Academy Award qualifying, BAFTA qualifying, and Canadian Screen Award qualifying 2021 Flickers’ Rhode Island International Film Festival.
2022 LGBTQ+ Los Angeles Film Festival viewer response: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3509whdYPlI&t=468s
https://kevmclellan.com/about/duck-hunting-with-the-grammarian-productions/
BOOK ARTS
Hemispheres (Fact-Simile Editions, 2019)
housed in the special collections in the Poetry Center at the UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA and the UNIVERSITY OF BUFFALO library
poem: http://www.pangyrus.com/poetry/crows-with-sun/
poems: http://requitedjournal.com/index.php?/poetry/kevin-mclellan/
interview: https://www.colorado.edu/timberjournal/2016/05/01/timber-interview-kevin-mcclellan
https://kevmclellan.com/about/hemispheres/
POETRY COLLECTION
Ornitheology (The Word Works, 2018)
2019 Massachusetts Book Awards: Poetry
19th Award: The Wall by Ilan Stavans (Pittsburgh)
19th Honors: Ornitheology by Kevin McLellan (Word Works) and Rewilding by January Gill O’Neil (CavanKerry)
19th Must Reads: Blood Labors by Daniel Tobin; Pray Me Stay Eager by Ellen Dore Watson; Bad Harvest by Dzvinia Orlowsky; White Storm by Gary Metras; My Tarantella by Jennifer Martelli; Shadow-Feast by Joan Houlihan; Night Unto Night by Martha Collins; See the Wolf by Sarah Sousa; Stanley’s Girl: Poems by Susan Eisenberg
review by Julie Marie Wade: https://therumpus.net/2018/10/ornitheology-by-kevin-mclellan/
review by Megan Alpert: https://tinderboxpoetry.com/ornitheology-by-kevin-mclellan
poems: https://superstitionreview.asu.edu/issue14/poetry/kevinmclellan
audio poem: http://thesoundofsugar.blogspot.com/2014/07/the-sound-of-sugarkevin-mclellan.html
poem: http://sixthfinch.com/mclellan1.html
https://kevmclellan.com/about/ornitheology/
BOOK ARTS
[box] (Letter [R] Press, 2016)
housed in the following archives: the Blue Star collection at HARVARD UNIVERSITY; Tutt Library at COLORADO COLLEGE; and THE HISTORY PROJECT
promo: https://vimeo.com/163961742
review by Jennifer Martelli: http://www.upthestaircase.org/box.html
buy: SOLD OUT!
https://kevmclellan.com/about/box/
POETRY COLLECTION
Tributary (Barrow Street, 2015)
poem: http://www.kenyonreview.org/kr-online-issue/2011-fall/selections/kevin-mclellan/
interview: http://www.sugarhousereview.com/interviews
buy: http://barrowstreet.org/press/book/tributary-kevin-mclellan/
https://kevmclellan.com/about/tributary-2/
CHAPBOOK
Round Trip (Seven Kitchens, 2010)
buy: https://sevenkitchenspress.com/editors-series-1/volume-one/kevin-mclellan/
Kevin McLellan 