BOOK PUBLISHED: “BLACK ICE AND FIRE” by James Ross Kelly

ANNOUNCING THE PUBLICATION OF “BLACK ICE AND FIRE”  BY JAMES ROSS KELLY

A finely crafted James Kelly poem is born of knowing.  When you read a poem from “Black Ice and Fire”, you will unequivocally NOT be reading about a thing.  You will read a poem from within a thing; you will be imbibing presence from outside and all around a thing; you will be gathering all of it up in your arms and you will embrace a thing.  You cannot be mild, indifferent, cavalier.  You must give of yourself.  Engage.

James Kelly’s’ poems demand intimate participation.  You are required to join Kelly’s inner circle where you can not indulge in the superficial.  The poems are tender and brutal, generous and challenging, broad in scope but also full of small, important detail.  As reader, you are James Kelly’s neighbor, friend, family-member, and companion.  You will be asked to join with the writer/narrator in facing and grasping profound loss, cruelty, anger, evil, as you will also be invited to admire and experience the most exquisite beauty, friendship, understanding and compassion.   This is life resonant with all its incomprehensible, glorious meaning.   And, when you participate in this way, give the book all of yourself, the experience of Kelly’s artistry will be moving and relevant and deeply satisfying.  The poems are resonant and impactful both because of the polished tradecraft and because they come to us from the rich depth and breadth of total, fearless immersion.

“Black Ice and Fire” is breathtaking in its conjuring.  You cannot avoid reading it.