Selected Publications
The Purchase
Published in The Hopkins Review, Winter 2023
Late August, in the shade of a canvas
tarp, near the blue brick of Bolton Dance
Academy and the newly warped
traffic circle spilling toward the Hudson...
In the Palace of Forgetting
A poem-interview with Keith Leonard, published in American Poetry Review, January/February 2023
What shape is the window of longing?
The window of longing is circular, in general. But it’s also an Apollonian Gasket, comprised of many smaller circles within it. Each circle recalls all other circles, just as each longing recalls all other longings.
Giant Looks Giant in the Mirror
In Narrative, Poem of the Week 2021
I was an infant until they handed me my brother
for a rattle. I was a baby until I suddenly shot up to six
feet tall. I was a toddler then, learning how to fall...
Two Poems
In The Los Angeles Review
New Normal, Illinois
We are driving to an orchard! The blue dawn throws
a glaze on the trees! Windfall falls! Coins from last night’s rain
light up the grass! The past and present
fuse in a single ride!
About Matthew Kelsey
Originally from Glens Falls, New York, Matthew Kelsey is a poet and actor based in Chicago. His poems have appeared in The American Poetry Review, Copper Nickel, Colorado Review, and elsewhere. He has received scholarships from the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference and the Sewanee Writers’ Conference, a teaching fellowship from the Kenyon Review Young Writers Program, and an Idyllwild Arts Writers Week Fellowship.
Matthew has appeared in improv and sketch comedy shows at Second City (Chicago) and the Hugo House (Seattle). He is a member of Mega Pancake and is in Second City's musical improv conservatory.