Robert Kelly: A Celebration
was screened on September 23, 2020 at The Poetry Project

On the eve of his 85th birthday, poets, artists, and friends celebrated the extraordinary and prolific poet Robert Kelly. This event marks Kelly’s birthday, as well as the publication of A City Full of Voices: Essays on the Work of Robert Kelly, the second of a two-volume set, preceded by the 2014 A Voice Full of Cities: The Collected Essays of Robert Kelly. In poems that travel vast possibilities of image and linguistic structure, Kelly has propelled us over decades into new terrains of self, relation, environment, and recognition.

The event was online and hosted by Pierre Joris and Nicole Peyrafitte, with a screening of the film they made film of a special reading by Kelly himself. The online event also featured toasts and contributions from Mary Caponegro, Billie Chernicoff, Ian Dreiblatt, Rainer Hanshe, Michael Ives, Kimberly Lyons, Charlotte Mandell, Thomas Meyer, Peter Monaco, Joel Newberger, Tamas Panitz, George Quasha, Susan Quasha, Elizabeth Robinson, Jerome Rothenberg, Anne Waldman, Norman Weinstein, and John Yau.

Enthusiastic readers and followers of Kelly’s work are encouraged to purchase A City Full of Voices: Essays on the Work of Robert Kelly. We’re pleased to recommend purchase from our friends at Bookshop, which raises money for local bookstores, and directly from the publisher, Contra Mundum Press. Here, as well, are Bookshop and Contra Mundum Press links for the earlier title in this two-volume set, A Voice Full of Cities: The Collected Essays of Robert Kelly.