front cover of Cage of Lit Glass
Cage of Lit Glass
Charles Kell
Autumn House Press, 2021
The debut poetry collection of Charles Kell, Cage of Lit Glass engages themes of death, incarceration, and family through a range of physical, emotional, and philosophical spaces. In startling images of beauty and violence, Kell creates a haunting world that mirrors our individual and cultural fears. Boldly engaging with the absurdity, strain, and horrors of life, Kell’s poems expand upon the lineage of writers such as Kafka, Beckett, and Rimbaud.
 
Cage of Lit Glass follows multiple individuals and points of view, all haunted by various states of unease and struggle that follow them like specters as they navigate their world. Kell’s poems form blurred narratives and playful experiments from our attempts to build lives from despair. A tense and insightful collection, these works will follow the reader long after the book is finished.
 
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front cover of Cage of Lit Glass
Cage of Lit Glass
Charles Kell
Autumn House Press, 2019
The debut poetry collection of Charles Kell, Cage of Lit Glass engages themes of death, incarceration, and family through a range of physical, emotional, and philosophical spaces. In startling images of beauty and violence, Kell creates a haunting world that mirrors our individual and cultural fears. Boldly engaging with the absurdity, strain, and horrors of life, Kell’s poems expand upon the lineage of writers such as Kafka, Beckett, and Rimbaud.
 
Cage of Lit Glass follows multiple individuals and points of view, all haunted by various states of unease and struggle that follow them like specters as they navigate their world. Kell’s poems form blurred narratives and playful experiments from our attempts to build lives from despair. A tense and insightful collection, these works will follow the reader long after the book is finished.
 
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front cover of Ishmael Mask
Ishmael Mask
Charles Kell
Autumn House Press, 2023
Poems that consider the instability of identity through fictional and religious characters.
 
In Ishmael Mask, Charles Kell reminds us that identity is precarious. Kell’s collection is a collage of the journeys and interior lives of various wanderers—from Ishmael, the son of Hagar, to Melville’s Ishmael, and from Pierre of The Ambiguities to Pierre Guyotat. Each poem strips back the mask and beckons us to witness humanity in its barest forms. Captain Ahab’s leg, Ishmael’s arm, and Pierre’s severed head serve as invitations to consider hunger and hope. The inspirations behind these poems—the Bible, Heraclitus, Melville, Guyotat, Tomaž Šalamun—are transformed by Kell, conjuring dreamscapes both dazzling and haunting.
 
Ishmael Mask masterfully allows a glimpse into the human experience of feeling lost—even when right at home, even in our own bodies.
 
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