a folk-told memoir
“A small opening into the underworld. The underside of flowers and trees, a thin white webbing linking each plant being. It smells of rot and fresh animal fat, wet fur and shared breath.”
In Tiger Paw, Tiger Paw, Knife, Knife, Kelly Gray has given us a shuddering incantation against domestication. Humans and animals morph into kin, plum trees and lemon trees mark yards where acts of wrongdoing transform bodies in and out of themselves, dead wolves give lectures to perverts, a uterus bleeds bee. Each haunting story centers body and place, pivoting between short prose and poetry that defies genre, leading the reader on a visceral journey of emotion.
Gray’s wielding of imagery is electric, flora and fauna drip from every page but always at the center a human heart. These stories do not offer up neat endings or lead the reader to the other side of transformation, but rather explore the impetus for change, the grit of transmutation in the face of individual and systemic abuse. Tenderness and brutality swirl together as characters undergo births and rebirths, deaths and redeaths. Ultimately, Tiger Paw, Tiger Paw, Knife, Knife asks: Will you speak of your wounds and carry your knife? Gray answers:
“I undress facing the audience. Watch me howl.”
PRE-ORDER your limited edition printed with a full color cover, including a transparent dust jacket, with offset printing, black and white interior on cream-colored matte pages, custom end sheets, and 8+ illustrations.
“A small opening into the underworld. The underside of flowers and trees, a thin white webbing linking each plant being. It smells of rot and fresh animal fat, wet fur and shared breath.”
In Tiger Paw, Tiger Paw, Knife, Knife, Kelly Gray has given us a shuddering incantation against domestication. Humans and animals morph into kin, plum trees and lemon trees mark yards where acts of wrongdoing transform bodies in and out of themselves, dead wolves give lectures to perverts, a uterus bleeds bee. Each haunting story centers body and place, pivoting between short prose and poetry that defies genre, leading the reader on a visceral journey of emotion.
Gray’s wielding of imagery is electric, flora and fauna drip from every page but always at the center a human heart. These stories do not offer up neat endings or lead the reader to the other side of transformation, but rather explore the impetus for change, the grit of transmutation in the face of individual and systemic abuse. Tenderness and brutality swirl together as characters undergo births and rebirths, deaths and redeaths. Ultimately, Tiger Paw, Tiger Paw, Knife, Knife asks: Will you speak of your wounds and carry your knife? Gray answers:
“I undress facing the audience. Watch me howl.”
PRE-ORDER your limited edition printed with a full color cover, including a transparent dust jacket, with offset printing, black and white interior on cream-colored matte pages, custom end sheets, and 8+ illustrations.
In Instructions for an Animal Body, Kelly Gray leads readers on a journey where body is both the death ground of grief and the birthplace of resilience. Using natural history to flip human constructs around predator and prey, violence and sensuality, Gray reimagines a lush modern mythology. From the work of vultures to weather systems between legs, these poems will transport you into a gritty world where boundaries between beasts and humans merge and the beautiful monster-within reigns supreme.
Available at Moon Tide Press.
Available at Moon Tide Press.
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My Fingers Are Whales and other stories of Cetology lays within the intersection of whale, human child, evolution and the unraveling of a family. Each poem lays fresh eyes on the entwined fates of human and whale as they swim into the dark waters of the Anthropocene. Stories float through currents where lore and science have more in common than not, families adapt and break, and grief is sibling to hope.
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Luther Burbank Center for the Arts and Horse& Plow Winery are thrilled to welcome Left Edge Theater for their original production of Kelly Gray's Beautiful Monsters, an experiential play about the confines of technologies and the human heart in a modern era. Each evening will include theater under their oak tree, guided tours of art installations in the redwood grove, and of course, wine and a summer menu.
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Praise...
