Devotions

by Robert Kelly

23 pages

Published January 1, 1967

About the author

Kelly has published more than fifty books of poetry and prose, including Red Actions: Selected Poems 1960-1993 (1995) and a collection of short fictions, A Transparent Tree (1985). Many were published by the Black Sparrow Press. He also edited the anthology A Controversy of Poets (1965).Kelly was of great help to the Hungryalist group of poets of India during the trial of Malay Roychoudhury,with whom he had correspondence,now archived at Kolkata.

Kelly received the Los Angeles Times First Annual Book Award (1980) for Kill the Messenger Who Brings Bad News and the American Book Award, Before Columbus Foundation (1991) for In Time.

Reviews

[Jamie Cooper · Rating 5 out of 5]

a dedication, to that Zeus we can approach
because he is dark like us, wills evil
out of his good, loses himself in a viper's nest
of mistaken motive, doesnt know
which end is up, which coil of his body
touches ground. To let her sleep
I light this tall green light, turn off
the white & yellow, wait for the virgin wick
to catch in the virgin flame. We
awake & asleep can approach the gods,
rhythm of our hands, rhythm of what sleeps in us
or wakes. He that dreads the gods dreads all things.

--R.K.