ABOUT JINX AND HEAVENLY CALLING
by Kelly DuMar
About jinx and heavenly calling, by Kelly DuMar
Lusty, vigorous, zestful. It’s hard to imagine our parents in the throes of passion, yet jinx and heavenly calling does just that. DuMar culls original text and graphics from love letters her mother penned to the poet's father during 1953-1954. From these letters mailed between first date and marriage, DuMar distills her mother’s intimacies, anxieties, and endearments, engaging readers in the captivating dynamic of a couple falling into a 50-year future.
About Kelly DuMar
Kelly DuMar is a poet, playwright and workshop facilitator from Boston. She’s author of four poetry chapbooks, including jinx and heavenly calling, published by Lily Poetry Review Books in March. Kelly’s poems and photos are published in a variety of literary journals. She teaches creative writing and runs Play Labs for the International Women’s Writing Guild and the Transformative Language Arts Network. Kelly produces the Featured Open Mic for the Journal of Expressive Writing.
FROM EILEEN CLEARY, LILY POETRY BOOKS FOUNDER/PUBLISHER
ABOUT JINX AND HEAVENLY CALLING–I POACHED A PORTION OF MY MOTHER’S LOVE LETTERS TO MY FATHER, 1953-1954
“What would you do if you found a box of love letters from your mother to your father? What would it feel like to tumble into your origin story? To discover a story lived out before it was lived out. jinx and heavenly calling is an inspired, dynamic, and visually stunning collection. It was sheer joy to work with Kelly through Lily Poetry Books to publish these epistolary erasures, filled with ephemera. Erasure creates, it does not find, These are not found poems, they are a form. They are created from letters and each poem has the restriction of the words on the original page. This is writing with the eyes, rather than the hand. As Mary Ruefle says, erasure is archeology. Think of the words and relics as societies. Erasure discovers societies as they existed, (already knowing what has become of them) and it imagines societies as they might yet exist.”
Reviews & Articles About jinx and heavenly calling
Watch the recording of Kelly’s Book Feature at the Journal of Expressive Writing Open Mic, March 30, 2023. Kelly reads from jinx and heavenly calling, and is interviewed by her publisher, Eileen Cleary.
Opening the Box of Surprise By Kelly DuMar
Published in The Journal of Expressive Writing, March 2023
The Paradoxical Art of Epistolary Erasure, a craft essay by Kelly DuMar, published in The Artisinal Writer, September 2023.
About epistolary erasure poetry - craft article published, August 2023––read it here in Cleaver Magazine
Read Kelly’s TLAN Blog Here
August 2023
Jan Lewis interviews Kelly DuMar for Upton Community TVabout her new book, “jinx and heavenly calling,” writing epistolary erasure poetry, her creative writing workshop philosophy and practice and her other published books and plays
Poet Jenny Grassl interviews Kelly DuMar during her Book Launch, hosted by Lily Poetry Review Books, about her new book and process of creating, “jinx and heavenly calling–I poached a portion of my mother’s love letters to my father, 1953-1954. Franci DuMar, Kelly’s daughter, who performs in Kelly’s short video about the book, is included in the discussion.
Kelly DuMar reads from “jinx and heavenly calling,” with other Lily Poetry Review Poets at Brown Bag Lit Reading Series, April 14, 2023, hosted by Chloe Yelena Miller and Shasta Grant