Michael Kelleher, Poet
Kelleher lives at 70 Cottage Street, Buffalo, NY 14201; his phone number is (716) 882-8982, his e.mail address mjk@acsu.buffalo.edu.
He has had poems in Rampike, Whatever,
Fordham Literary Review,
Alternative Motifs and
The Monthly.
Among contemporary poets, Kelleher cites
Eileen Myles,
Charles Bernstein,
Elaine Equi,
Susan Howe and
Jackson Mac Low as particularly important to him. As for
poets of yesteryear, he names the following as among those he particularly admires:
Frank O'Hara,
Wallace Stevens,
H.D.,
Byron,
T.S. Eliot,
Ezra Pound,
W.C. Williams,
Dante,
Neruda and
Sidney. As for critics, the three he most favors are
Derrida,
Foucalt and
Barthes.
Kelleher considers himself "a cheating formalist. An egotistical non-intentionalist." He goes on to say, "I love translations (all forms - homolinguistic, homophonic, etc.)
and I love also chance operations. All of this is qualified
by the fact that I am a cheater. I mostly use these techniques
to generate a usable vocabulary, which is then manipulated within
the bounds of a predetermined form (sonnets often, I cheat
in this as well). I don't think about content usually until
the poem has gone through a draft or two, and then only as
a structuring element of the poem."
Asked about his impression of contemporary poetry, he says,
"On bad days fractured and petty and hostile. On good days
diverse and exciting. (I guess I'm talking more about the scene).
I think the possibilities for poetry have opened wide in the
past forty years or so, and for this I am grateful to the
many innovators of the period."
He believes many zines, otherstream presses and the like worthy of note, including
EPC,
Rampike,
Mudfish,
American Letters & Commentary,
New American Writing,
Conjunctions,
Sulfur,
Talisman,
Disturbed Guillotine,
Tinfish,
RIF/T,
non and
Meow Press.
Click here to read "The Necessary Elephant," one of Kelleher's poems. .
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