CLOSURE: Central Library will be closed Tuesday, July 21, through Saturday, July 25, while emergency repairs are made to the building’s cooling system. We expect to reopen Monday, July 27. Click for more details on holds, program schedules, and returns during the closure. 

Notice of Public Meeting: Kalamazoo Public Library Board of Trustees | July 27 | 5:30 pm | Central Library/Van Deusen Room. The packet of information for the meeting can be found on the library’s website. 

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The Reincarnation of a Love Bird

Year

2025

Language

ENGLISH

Publication Information

Kollin Kennedy

Summary

Like Delacroix capturing the Romanticism & exotic Orientalism of Northern Africa in bold paintings, this collection unravels time, flesh, and form, rendering this poetry a fevered hallucination of history...In The Reincarnation of the Lovebird, poet Kollin Kennedy returns with a richly imagined collection that moves away from sonnets and embraces the elegant power of Ottava Rima-the Italian verse form favored by Byron and Tasso. With precise meter and lush rhyme, Kennedy brings to life a world where poetry is nothing short of avant-garde.Each poem in this collection is steeped in the visual grandeur of 17th- and 18th-century painting. Here, Amida Nyorai floats in infinite light, Ysabel Domènech dances like a goddess reborn, and Bacchus, true to his divine nature as the god of wine, intoxicates the revelers in a poem inspired by Velázquez's iconic painting.Two signature pieces mark Kennedy's boldest stylistic leaps: Homage to Eugène Delacroix, a high Romantic tribute to art as revolution, and The Egyptian Chess Players, a surreal, cubist-inspired experiment blending Tadema's classical luxury with Picasso's disassembled form.With its authentic voice, intricate forms, and ambitious themes, this collection explores love, war, decay, transcendence, and the haunting duality of the sacred and profane. Kennedy paints with language the way old masters used oil-every line dense with texture, every stanza paying homage to mythic memory.Perfect for readers of classical poetry, art lovers, literary mystics, and anyone drawn to the wild crossroads of decadence and devotion, The Reincarnation of the Lovebird presents a poetic world reborn.

Subjects