poetry, prose & story
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"Instructions for an Animal Body is itself an animal body; the seams, the cover, the binding that holds the pages together are a construct of an emergent identity. This would be a difficult task by any measure, and it is excellently executed by the author in this engaging, rich collection."
~Ralph Pennel, Founding Editor of Midway Journal, author of A World Less Perfect for Dying In Read the full review at Rain Taxi Review Kelly Gray (she/her/hers) lives in Northern California on unceded Coast Miwok and Kashaya Pomo land. She writes about what she knows or is trying to know; parenting, eco-grief, mental health, dead things, monsters, prophetic animals, relationships to self and others, and rural life.
Gray is the author of Instructions for an Animal Body (MoonTide Press, 2021), Tiger Paw, Tiger Paw, Knife, Knife (Quarter Press, 2022) the audio chapbook My Fingers are Whales and Other Stories of Cetology (Moon Child Press, 2021), and her chapbook Quag Daughter is forthcoming from Dancing Girl Press in 2023. She is the recipient of the 2022 Neutrino Short-Short Prize for her story "A Note on Sex and Death on the Beach" and the Creative Sonoma Cohort Prize in partnership with Pepperwood's Center for Conservation Science. Her writing has most recently appeared in Southern Humanities Review, Northwest Review, Passages North, Menacing Hedge, Newfound, Pithead Chapel, and other badass journals & anthologies. Currently, she is the Outreach & Assistant Editor at Bracken Magazine. "Instructions for an Animal Body is a collection of poems full of intuitive wisdom; somehow ancient and timely at once. They remind us that time has extinguished neither violence nor kindheartedness. They track the small acts of brutality that lead to endless hatred, war, rape, and captivity, while murmuring a more compassionate approach—one that requires listening to softer voices. Gray shows us a restorative pathway for healing from violence, a consciousness-laden vision of reparation and reconstruction that requires a new language. In these poems, she delivers a story in which healing the child heals the mother; healing the mother heals the lover; healing the lover heals the trespasser; healing the trespasser heals the violator. There is hope in this new language that does not rely on capitulation to wrongdoing. Healing the violator might even heal the earth."
~Risa Denenberg, Co-founder of Headmistress Press, for CUlTURAL DAILY Read the full review at Cultural Daily |