Paul Killebrew
Ethical Consciousness (2013) and Flowers (2010)
Paul Killebrew was born and raised in Tennessee. He is the author of two full-length collections, Ethical Consciousness (2013) and Flowers (2010), both published by Canarium Books. His chapbook, Forget Rita (2003), was published by the Poetry Society of America, and Ugly Duckling Presse published another, Inspector vs. Evader (2007). John Ashbery has written that Paul “plunges us into a world we inhabit but seldom notice, forcing its horror on us but also reminding us why we go on coping with it.” From 2008 to 2012 he served as a staff attorney at Innocence Project New Orleans, and he currently resides in Maryland with his wife and son.
Click here to order Ethical Consciousness, Flowers, or our other titles.
Or get them from SPD
Or get Ethical Consciousness from Amazon
Or get Flowers from Amazon
Click here to read Paul's poems at the Poetry Foundation archive.
Click here for one of Paul’s poems at Soft Targets.
Click here to watch Paul read at Pilot Books.
“All my poet friends mourned when Paul told us he’d be going into law, so soon after he appeared on the scene as a supernova. ‘No fear. The blue light. My breath washing out in the air.’ Yes. He came out strengthened. Grown in imagination. Bigger in his lucid scanning of America. Rejuvenating. To read him is a delight.”
- Tomaz Salamun
“I thought: ‘this is an anecdotal phenomenology’ and looked up the derivation of anecdote: ‘thing given out.’ These poems keep giving and giving out; anecdotes evaporate and recrudesce in a different form, in new detail. Meaning emerges as each observation defamiliarizes the next and the prior. An epistemology punctured with an affectionate loathing opens out into love. Agonized, startled, startling wit. Truthtelling that fails because it’s truthful. These poems leave me alert to the floating world. Welcome Paul Killebrew, tabula rascal.”
- Catherine Wagner
“[Killebrew] plunges us into a world we inhabit but seldom notice, forcing its horror on us but also reminding us why we go on coping with it, why we’re in it for the long haul, wherever the carpool takes us.”
- John Ashbery
Click here for a review of Flowers at Publishers Weekly.
Click here for a review of Flowers at Harp & Altar.
Click here for an interview with Paul at BOMB magazine's blog.
Click here for a review of Flowers at New Pages.
Click here for one of Paul’s poems at The Brooklyn Rail.
Paul Killebrew was born and raised in Tennessee. He is the author of two full-length collections, Ethical Consciousness (2013) and Flowers (2010), both published by Canarium Books. His chapbook, Forget Rita (2003), was published by the Poetry Society of America, and Ugly Duckling Presse published another, Inspector vs. Evader (2007). John Ashbery has written that Paul “plunges us into a world we inhabit but seldom notice, forcing its horror on us but also reminding us why we go on coping with it.” From 2008 to 2012 he served as a staff attorney at Innocence Project New Orleans, and he currently resides in Maryland with his wife and son.
Click here to order Ethical Consciousness, Flowers, or our other titles.
Or get them from SPD
Or get Ethical Consciousness from Amazon
Or get Flowers from Amazon
Click here to read Paul's poems at the Poetry Foundation archive.
Click here for one of Paul’s poems at Soft Targets.
Click here to watch Paul read at Pilot Books.
“All my poet friends mourned when Paul told us he’d be going into law, so soon after he appeared on the scene as a supernova. ‘No fear. The blue light. My breath washing out in the air.’ Yes. He came out strengthened. Grown in imagination. Bigger in his lucid scanning of America. Rejuvenating. To read him is a delight.”
- Tomaz Salamun
“I thought: ‘this is an anecdotal phenomenology’ and looked up the derivation of anecdote: ‘thing given out.’ These poems keep giving and giving out; anecdotes evaporate and recrudesce in a different form, in new detail. Meaning emerges as each observation defamiliarizes the next and the prior. An epistemology punctured with an affectionate loathing opens out into love. Agonized, startled, startling wit. Truthtelling that fails because it’s truthful. These poems leave me alert to the floating world. Welcome Paul Killebrew, tabula rascal.”
- Catherine Wagner
“[Killebrew] plunges us into a world we inhabit but seldom notice, forcing its horror on us but also reminding us why we go on coping with it, why we’re in it for the long haul, wherever the carpool takes us.”
- John Ashbery
Click here for a review of Flowers at Publishers Weekly.
Click here for a review of Flowers at Harp & Altar.
Click here for an interview with Paul at BOMB magazine's blog.
Click here for a review of Flowers at New Pages.
Click here for one of Paul’s poems at The Brooklyn Rail.