Another Place Altogether by Candice M. Kelsey
Kelsay Books, 2025
Dr. Rachel Turney: This is your eighth book, and some of these poems you have been hanging onto for a bit. I noticed one had been previously published in 2016! That makes me want to ask: How did you come to compile this collection with these pieces, and why now in your life?
Candice Kelsey: I tend to do that, hang onto a poem here or there for many years until it’s ready to see the light of day. I recently had a poem accepted that I wrote in 2017 but didn’t revise until this fall. As for the 2016 poem that caught your eye, that one was in response to the election results of that year, and I never quite found a spot for it in my previous manuscripts. After this year’s election, I felt it was necessary to include it as a sort of Round One piece, and to preface my election poem from this year, “May Day, May Day.”
RT: One poem that I think I don’t quite know enough about you to understand is “Balish.” Could you talk about that piece?
CK: I’ve been inspired by the surrealist prose poem for a while, mostly in response to the brilliant work of Jose Hernandez Diaz. Here I am going for a fable vibe to explore how my family, the Balish family, has been fractured over time. I use the loss of a shared language to symbolize that disconnect, and I am the girl who tries to recover it. My hope is others can relate to cultural erasure, intergenerational disconnect, exile, and the bittersweet burden of being the one who tries to repair what has been broken.
RT: “What Never Seems to Happen” appears to be a “simple” poem in that it feels literal. This is different from the way you usually write. It stood out in the collection to me. Can you talk about that poem, how you came to write it, and why you included it here?
CK: Thank you for noticing that stylistic departure! I wanted to write the moment exactly as it was: a rare pocket of domestic quiet. Nothing transforms; the speaker isn’t undergoing a crisis or revelation. She’s simply an exhausted mom inhabiting a rare afternoon of peace. The poem ends with the speaker hoping to write something that “leaves my heart empty.” To get to that kind of honesty, I felt I had to strip my language down—like the speaker ushering her family out the door—and trust the simplicity of the moment.
RT: I noted some ekphrastic pieces in this collection. What is your relationship with visual arts and ekphrastic writing?
CK: As cliche as it sounds, my undergrad art history class has never left me. Spending a month in Florence, Italy, didn’t help matters much either! And teaching Moby-Dick led me straight into a full-blown obsession with J.M.W. Turner’s seascapes. As a creative writing teacher, one of my most beloved units is the ekphrastic, beginning with Icarus work by William Carlos Williams and Peter Brueghel. In a larger sense, visual art seems to sharpen my perception, nudging me out of familiar patterns toward a language outside of my inner world.
RT: I hear you; I will never forget those slide shows in a dark room in undergrad. You use a lot of (what I consider) intimidating techniques and styles like the ghazal, for example. Is there a writing/poetry style or technique you would like to try but haven’t or that you have tried but haven’t found success with?
CK: Concrete poetry. To me that’s the architectural genius, the Frank Lloyd Wright if you will, of the poetic form, and I continuously find myself standing in the rubble of my collapsed attempts at it. I recently devoured Karen Weiser’s Or, The Ambiguities (Ugly Duckling Presse), and her use of innovative visual forms, including some wild lettristic accumulations and reductions, inspired me. I have a poem about my late father, who suffered from Alzheimer’s, getting lost in the airport, but I cannot find a way to format it to reflect the labyrinthine chaos he must have experienced. Help!
RT: I have seen some of the poems included in this book in literary magazines and journals. You’ve had so much success publishing. Have you considered doing a compilation of your favorites or a best of Candice book?
CK: You are so kind! Currently I just need to find a way to get my 17-year-old to clean her room, but yes, I’d love to explore that idea. I do have another full-length manuscript out roaming the cold publishing streets asking for a home, however.
RT: Ah, I bet we will be seeing that one in print soon. But that’s for a different time because now we have the robust collection (I love the length!) Another Place Altogether published by Kelsay Books.
–
Candice M. Kelsey is a bi-coastal writer and educator. Her work has received Pushcart and Best-of-the-Net nominations, and she is the author of eight books. Her work appears in Bust, The Rumpus, Painted Bride Quarterly, Poet Lore, SWWIM, and other journals. A reader for The Los Angeles Review and The Weight Journal, she recently served as an AWP Poetry Mentor.
Rachel Turney, Ed.D., is an educator and artist located in Denver, Colorado. Rachel is on staff at Bare Back Magazine and is a reader for The Los Angeles Review. Her poetry collection Record Player Life is available with The Poetry Lighthouse.