Works by Kelly Norma Ellis
Black Bone by Call Number: 821.914 B624 2017 - Circulating (3rd Floor)Publication Date: 2018"Affrilachian Mixtape I: Turntablism" by Kelly Norman Ellis
"Raised by Women" by Kelly Norman Ellis
Coal black voices : a documentary by Call Number: DVD 821.008 C652 2001 - DVD Collection (2nd Floor)Publication Date: 2001Coal Black voices is an intimate mosaic of images, poetry, and storytelling by the Affrilachian Poets as they glimpses of life in the American Black South and Appalachian region. The ensemble of African-American writers challenge simple notions of an all white Appalachian region and culture while drawing on the traditions such as the Harlem Renaissance, the Black Arts Movement, and the experiences of the African Diaspora. The poetry of the Afrilachian poets celebrates their African heritage and rural roots while encompassing themes of racism and Black identity. In this documentary they give voice to the pleasures of family, land, good food, artistic community, music and transformation
Head off and Split by Call Number: 821.914 F514h 2011 c. 2ISBN: 9780810152168Publication Date: 2011-01-27The poems in Nikky Finney's breathtaking new collection Head Off & Split sustain a sensitive and intense dialogue with emblematic figures and events in African American life: from civil rights matriarch Rosa Parks to former secretary of state Condoleezza Rice, from a brazen girl strung out on lightning to a terrified woman abandoned on a rooftop during Hurricane Katrina. Finney's poetic voice is defined by an intimacy that holds a soft yet exacting eye on the erotic, on uncanny political and family events, like her mother's wedding waltz with South Carolina senator Strom Thurmond, and then again on the heartbreaking hilarity of an American president's final State of the Union address. Artful and intense, Finney's poems ask us to be mindful of what we fraction, fragment, cut off, dice, dishonor, or throw away, powerfully evoking both the lawless and the sublime.
Heartwood by Call Number: 374.012 F514h Copy 1ISBN: 0813109108Publication Date: 1997-09-25" Deep in the center of every tree, you'll find the heartwood. The characters in this new book by poet Nikky Finney are the heartwood of their small Kentucky communities. You'll meet Buck Jones and Mae Bennet, whose anger has twisted them up inside, Queenie Sims and Arizona Scott, who can see the good in people, and Trina Sims and Jenny Bryan, two young women who discover how much they are alike despite their different skin color.
Offerings of Desire by Call Number: 821.92 E474o 2012 - Circulating (3rd Floor)Publication Date: 2012"In Kelly Norman Ellis's long-awaited second collection, a grand cinema of black life is honey-beamed and balanced on a 'nipple of coal.' Somewhere in the middle of turning these pages, the reader will helplessly rise and mercilessly hunt for dirty rice and Bill Withers. It is indeed the poet's job to save something, but Ellis does more—she swears to paper a luscious book so rich with black zest and drylongso that each page sets high our thirst for all that is human, longed for and inexplicable."—Nikky Finney "Every stanza in this fierce and formidable collection strikes a sweet, keening note for the colored girl—the front-row-center Sunday morning worshipper, the fast gal craving the jukebox on Saturday night, the grandmama arced over a stove-top staple, the precocious nappy-headed chile tripping the double-dutch line. With OFFERINGS OF DESIRE, Kelly Norman Ellis has graced us all with a gift that is nothing short of a miracle. She has blessed the sisterhood with a soundtrack."—Patricia Smith
On Wings Made of Gauze by Call Number: 821.914 F514o 1985ISBN: 0688059465Publication Date: 1985-08-01
Rice by Call Number: 821.914 F514ri 2013ISBN: 9780810152328Publication Date: 2013-07-31In Rice, her second volume of poetry, Nikky Finney explores the complexity of rice as central to the culture, economy, and mystique of the coastal South Carolina region where she was born and raised. The prized Carolina Gold rice paradoxically made South Carolina one of the most oppressive states for slaves and also created the remarkable Gullah culture on the coastal islands. The poems in Rice compose a profound and unflinching journey connecting family and the paradoxes of American history, from the tragic times when African slaves disembarked on the South Carolina coast to the triumphant day when Judge Ernest A. Finney Jr., Nikky’s father, was sworn in as South Carolina’s first African American chief justice. Images from the Finney family archive illustrate and punctuate this collection. Rice showcases Finney’s hungry intellect, her regional awareness and pride, and her sensitivity to how cultures are built and threatened.
The Ringing Ear by Call Number: 821.9208 R581 2007 - Circulating (3rd Floor)Publication Date: 2007"Dirty Rice" by Kelly Norman Ellis
Tougaloo Blues by Call Number: 821.92 E474t 2003 - Circulating (3rd Floor)Publication Date: 2003This collection of poems explores the author's southern roots through a blues/narrative voice and revisits her Mississippi youth, while revealing the contemporary voice of a Black woman searching for place and community outside of her southern past.
The World Is Round by Call Number: 821.914 F514w 2013ISBN: 9780810152335Publication Date: 2013-07-31The World Is Round, Nikky Finney s third volume of poetry, collects the wisps of memory we carry with us throughout our earthly lives and weaves them into deft and nuanced poems that emphasize understanding the cycles of life. The settings offer a view into the kaleidoscope of human experience: the sweetness and shock of family life, the omnipresent wash of memory, and the ebullience of warm Southern air. The World Is Round carries with it an implicit challenge to the author as a poet, and to the reader as a fellow human to see the characters and details and events of our lives with clarity, fearlessness, and love. The result is poems that range the gamut of human reach and resilience, fury and frailty. The poet s vision of community requires understanding and tolerance from every breathing soul. Finney illuminates the cruelties of the sometimes gawking, narrow-minded world and makes a plea for compassion inspired by our common humanity."
Biography
KELLY NORMAN ELLIS, author of Tougaloo Blues (2003) and Offerings of Desire (2012). Her poetry has appeared in Sisterfire: Black Womanist Fiction and Poetry, Spirit and Flame, Role Call: A Generational Anthology of Social and Political Black Literature and Art, Boomer Girls, Essence Magazine, Obsidian, Calyx, and Cornbread Nation. She is a recipient of a Kentucky Foundation for Women writer’s grant and is a Cave Canem fellow and founding member of the Affrilachian Poets. Ellis is an associate professor of English and creative writing and chairperson for the Department of English, Foreign Languages and Literatures at Chicago State University.
source:
Spriggs, Bianca Lynne, and Jeremy Paden, editors. “Biographies.” Black Bone: 25 Years of the Affrilachian Poets, University Press of Kentucky, Lexington, KY, 2017, pp. 151–156.
