Kelan Nee is a poet and carpenter from Massachusetts. His work has been published by Poetry Magazine, Academy of American Poets, The Yale Review, The Missouri Review, and elsewhere. He holds an MFA from Washington University in St. Louis, and is pursuing a PhD in Literature and Creative Writing at the University of Houston.
His awards and fellowships include a 2023 Gregory Djankian Scholarship awarded by The Adroit Journal, a 2022 Inprint C. Glenn Cambor fellowship, a 2022 Bread Loaf Contributor’s award, and a 2021 Academy of American Poets prize.
Felling
University of North Texas Press, April 2024 (available for sale)
Selected by Gregory Fraser
“After the 1940 publication of Native Son, Richard Wright shared some of his stylistic goals in the novel. ‘I wanted the reader to feel that Bigger’s story was happening now,’ he writes, ‘like a play upon the stage or a movie unfolding upon the screen. Action follows action, as in a prize fight.’ Kelan Nee’s poetry delivers the immediacy and punch that Wright demanded of literature. Nee has the head for poetry, the heart for poetry, and above all, the guts. This debut collection holds back nothing and leaves me reeling with high hopes for Nee’s future in the craft.”