Kelly Lenox's debut collection finds resonance within the natural world for a life undergoing a tectonic shift. Her poems face the void without flinching, and without losing hope.

Honorable Mention, 2018 Brockman-Campbell Book Award, North Carolina Poetry Society

Sample Poems by Kelly Lenox

"Kelly Lenox's brave, beautiful book is full of wonders--a heart made of soapstone, a bungee cord freefall, hope itself outfi ed with talons. What a rare and lovely thing to dive deeper into the mysterious essence of a woman's being in poem a er poem, finding within her own meditations the greatest gifts that poetry can give us, that she gives us--awe, humor, and wisdom in the natural splendor all around us. And The Brightest Rock is a splendor itself, deserving front and center standing on anyone's bookshelf."--Robert Vivian

"The Brightest Rock is struck through with deep veins of ore, poems that reach back into time and reveal again how hard it is to be human."--Dorianne Laux

"The Brightest Rock shines with hard-won truths, such as, 'In complete dark- ness, / eyes invent light.' And, 'In the Country of the Bone Flute,' upon feeling a 'thundering bass wind tasting of glacier,' she tells that wind, 'I'm hollow-- / I'm hollow-- / Sing in me.' One reason we read is to learn how to live, and Kelly Lenox is a wise--and joyful--teacher."--Natasha Saje

"In one poem, Kelly Lenox observes that 'The bird in the sycamore / still doesn't know / it's asking the wrong question,' and indeed that question is behind all these poems, which keep probing the essential questions of our lives. It is not the philosophy, but the quiet and impeccable skill through which she guides us that make this book so good, bringing together what Dickinson called the outer and inner worlds. 'The hopping crow traces a path as jagged as my pulse,' she says in another poem. There won't be any easy answers here because this is a real poet whose powers are everywhere in evidence as she negotiates a 'Slippery World.' If you want real poetry, this is it."--Richard Jackson

Kelly Lenox has published poems, prose, translations of poetry and fiction, and book reviews in the U.S. and abroad. Her work has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and  other awards. She is the translator of the chapbook Chasms (PM Books: 2003), by the Slovenian poet Barbara Korun.  She is co-translator of Six Slovenian Poets (UK: Arc, 2006)  and Voice in the Body (Litterae Slovenicae, 2005). She lives in Durham, North Carolina, where she is a technical writer and editor  for the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences. She holds an  MFA in writing from the Vermont College of Fine Arts, and a BA in environmental science from the University of Virginia.

ISBN-13: 978-1625492241, 104 pages, $19

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