Artist’s Statement
“This work responds to the many facets of isolation experienced over the past year and charts its way through the translation of that experience into poetry, where the idea of working with limitation lends itself to expression as a practice of processing. It has allowed me to express through a voice that wants to chew doom to a pulp and spit out a new form, the experience of which is spectral in its urgency. This process-based hybrid work, in its structured and limited space, offers a way to explore the textures of voice amidst a rapidly-changing world. The source text for this project was The Arctic Diary of Russell Williams Porter, which is, like any arctic narrative, a story of survival in an unlivable climate. The words Williams used to describe the saga subjected themselves to an allegorical parallel once cut from Williams’ pages and rearranged onto mine. Over time, the collection morphed into something that pleads for harmony in nature and begs the attention of the reader to the finite world in which we live.”
Kylie Gellatly is the author of The Fever Poems, forthcoming from Finishing Line Press (Summer 2021). Her poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in GASHER, Iterant Magazine, Petrichor, La Vague Journal, Literary North, SWWIM, and Malasaña. She is the poetry editor for Mount Holyoke Review and the book reviews editor for Green Mountains Review. Kylie lives in Western Massachusetts and is a Frances Perkins Scholar at Mount Holyoke College. For more, visit www.kyliegellatly.com