Kate Colby

Kate Colby is an American poet.

She grew up in Massachusetts. She graduated from Wesleyan University,^[1] and with an MFA from California College of the Arts. In 1997, she moved to San Francisco.^[2] She worked for several years at Institute for Unpopular Culture as a volunteer. In 2008, she moved in Providence, Rhode Island, where she works as an editor.^[3]

Her work has appeared in Aufgabe,^[4] New American Writing, NO: a journal of the arts, and Parthenon West Review,^[5]

Awards

• 2007 Norma Farber First Book Award, Fruitlands
• 2011 Finalist for Poetry Book of the Year Award, Beauport

Works

• "Four Reflections". Shampoo Poetry 21. July 2004. 
• "Fruit of the Season's Slush Fund". Archived from the original on 2007-05-23. 

Poetry Books

• Fruitlands. Litmus Press. 2006. ISBN 978-0-9723331-9-1. 
• Unbecoming Behavior. Ugly Duckling Presse. 2008. ISBN 978-1-933254-40-1. 
• Beauport. Litmus Press. 2010. ISBN 978-1-933959-11-5. 
• The Return of the Native. Ugly Duckling Presse. 2011. ISBN 978-1-933254-77-7. 
• I Mean. Ugly Duckling Presse. 2015. ISBN 978-1-937027-45-2. 

Reviews

Kate Colby's Unbecoming Behavior examines Jane Bowles’ biography through an imaginative parsing of sensory detail, autobiographical detail and critique of creative process. The long poem is as engaging and resonant as the subject matter is rich.^[6]

Besides Colby’s interesting thematic projects, Fruitlands bears smaller traces of her fingerprints: her obsession with the color blue, the quote she uses from one of my favorite Built to Spill songs (No one wants to hear / what you dreamt about / unless you dreamt about / them), her references to Arnold Schwarzenegger and Bruno Schulz. These moments are so delightful and unique, they feel comfortably inscrutable. Or, just as likely, I realized there was something harsh, even disingenuous, in asking the question “why?” when they felt just right.^[7]

References

External links

• "An Interview with Kate Colby", Bookslut