Vermont Studio Center - March 2023!

Hey all!

I'm finishing my last semester at Mount Holyoke before moving on to grad school next fall! Before releasing my first book, The Fever Poems, I've been working on a second collection that requires significant time and space. Inspired by ten+ years of work in the restaurant industry, this project combines visual poetry and essays to meditate on the relationship between humans and animals, the simultaneous intimacy with death (carcasses of animals), and the dissociation within the food industry. On a more personal level, these poems work through gender in labor and substance abuse so latent in restaurants.

The writing is exceptionally tedious, as I am using only language found in Escoffier's Cookbook and Art of Fine Cooking. Physically cutting the words out (mimicking butchery), I am rearranging them to compose these poems and collaging them so that the process is just as visible as--and essential to--the product. For these reasons, time, focus, and space are crucial and have not been easy to access while in school. I have 25 of these poems completed so far and would like to meet this part of the project in the Spring of 2023.

I have been lucky enough to be accepted to the Vermont Studio Center for a 3-week residency, but it is financially beyond me. Because I've been seeing this manuscript in addition to my school work over the past year, having this time at VSC will allow me to figure out what direction it wants to take before I take it to an MFA program. Please consider donating so I can make this book what it needs to be!

You can see examples of the work I've done so far here: https://www.kyliegellatly.com/publications