FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
 February 22, 2005
Contact: Heather Haas
(816) 235-1601*
haash@umkc.edu
 

New Book Explores Author’s Ties to the Holocaust, the American South, and Her Own Personal Past

KANSAS CITY, Mo.—UMKC’s BkMk Press announces the April 1 publication of Marilyn Kallet’s latest poetry book, Circe, After Hours. Kallet is promoting the book at appearances in Asheville, N.C.; Berea, Ky.; Knoxville and Nashville, Tenn.; Muncie, Ind.; Orange County, Calif.; Washington, D.C.; Kansas City; and the Associated Writing Program’s convention in Vancouver, Canada. She will also appear on the nationally syndicated radio program New Letters on the Air.

The book includes poems telling of her childhood relocation from the south to New York, later living in Tennessee, and her travels to Horb, Germany, where she discovered facts about her Jewish relatives’ experiences in the Holocaust.

Many of her poems handle sensitive subjects with humor. In “Great Poet,” she describes how listening to Lucinda Williams’s music transforms her from a perfectly composed, pearl-like “great poet”: “I realized I wasn’t a pearl. / I had hair. / I must be animal …. Still, I found myself unable to say / ‘postmenopausal.’” She counterbalances personal humor with well-honed lyricism.

Poet X.J. Kennedy says, “Marilyn Kallet writes with candor, infectious humor, and verve… From start to finish, Circe, After Hours engages us with some vivid, funny patches of autobiography and, at the end, moving elegies for Holocaust victims in the poet’s own family.” In the poem “Survivor,” Kallet relates the Holocaust to Germany’s popular fairy tales, by saying, “A few prisoners / had returned from Auschwitz, / told the truth about ‘the East.’ / No gingerbread houses.”

“Poetry is a flexible instrument for experiencing the world in a sonorous and reflective way,” said Kallet. “It adds new layers to what we have felt and seen. Its lines remember, bear witness, and hold the poet and the reader responsible for the world we live in.”

Circe, After Hours is Kallet’s tenth book. Her poems have appeared in hundreds of publications, including New Letters, Prairie Schooner, and Tar River Poetry. Kallet has won the Tennessee Arts Commission Literary Fellowship in Poetry and was named Outstanding Woman in the Arts by the Knoxville YWCA. She is the poetry editor for New Millennium Writings and holds the Hodges Chair for Distinguished Teaching at the University of Tennessee, where she directed the creative writing program for seventeen years. She is also the author of the essay, “My Brief and Happy Reign as Knoxville Slam Queen.”  She has been elected to the East Tennessee Literary Hall of Fame in poetry.

Circe, After Hours is available from BkMk Press and from other wholesale and retail outlets. It is $13.95 in trade paperback, ISBN 1-886157-51-0, 94 pp.

BkMk Press was founded in 1971 and became a part of UMKC in 1983. The press publishes fine literature by contemporary authors. Financial assistance for BkMk Press is provided by the Missouri Arts Council, a state agency, by UMKC, and by private donations. Media review copies of Circe, After Hours may be requested by calling 816-235-2558.

The University of Missouri-Kansas City, established in 1963, has the following strategic goals: In 2006: We are a national leader in scholarship and creative activity; We attract, nurture, and develop responsible community leaders; We are an essential community partner and resource; We are a workplace of choice; and We have the resources to fuel our vision.

*Individuals with speech or hearing impairments may call Relay Missouri at (800) 735-2966 (TT) or (800) 735-2466 (voice).

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