Salem MA

8/1/16

August, you fickle b, where did you come from? It seems like only yesterday I was basking in the humid heat of July! (It was only yesterday). I have a few things worth reporting.

I guess before anything else I should let you all know that the special edition of Drunk Monkeys (in response to the Orlando PULSE shooting) is now out. This was such an amazing endeavor and I am so happy to have been a part of it, even from just a social media standpoint. I beg you all to read it. It has some stellar contributors.

My poem “Our Bones Will Be Our Ruins” is featured in Clever Girl issue 4. You can buy it via their website.

I finished Zoetic Press‘s 31/31 Write Like You’re Alive challenge. Well, I mean, I got like 25 pieces in, but that counts. I hosted 4 live chats on Twitter and I am considering keeping them going. I did a series of erasure poems based on Dax Riggs songs and made them into a short chapbook. If you’d want one, order one here!

In July, Pokemon Go debuted. I am going through a hard time emotionally– probably the hardest of my life, a time where old hopes are dying and new hopes are clawing desperately at the dirt covering them, trying to emerge. Pokemon Go lifts that depression and those suicidal thoughts, albeit temporarily, and my Facebook rant about those bashing it was crafted into a more viable essay that Five 2 One Magazine was kind enough to publish. Weeks later, I still love it, regardless of what the whiny babies at r/pokemongo have to say. I even got my first piece of hate mail, from a man in my city who told me to start renting here (?) and go home by 10, and when I replied to him he told me if I replied back it would be considered harassment! People are sort of crazy.

Yesterday my friend Dan and I took my son Aidan on a 5 mile scavenger hunt in Salem MA, and we caught tons of Pokemon, so shut up, ~haters~.

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I think that might be it for now. It’s back to being distracted and submitting poems to different places for now.

7/5/16

Summer is in full swing and things are going well. I am participating in Zoetic Press‘s 31/31 Write Like You’re Alive challenge, and I’ll be damned if I didn’t write two pieces of flash fiction! I never write fiction. CRAZY.

Last month I participated in Feminist of Salem’s first Feminist Art Wednesday at Koto (all this, of course, in Salem, MA). I read a few poems from the aforementioned chapbook and listened to other super- fierce women read and perform. It was excellent. Here is a video from the whole thing– I’m the sleepy looking one around the 1:05 mark or so.

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I was pretty excited to see that The Review Review… uh… reviewed Drunk Monkeys Issue 1, which hosted my poem “There is a Creature in the Desert with the Sharpest Claws”. the write-up can be found here, but I will quote the part that focuses on me because I am vain:

“This thread is continued in some of the poetry selections in this first issue of Drunk Monkeys, especially in Kolleen Carney’s poem “There is a Creature in the Desert with the Sharpest Claws:” “What matters is your skin / that toughened with time, feet on the hard ground / and running, pointed nails like talons.” There is momentum and running rhythm in this poem, in sync with the pumping arms of the creature. “Even the gentlest animals / will gnash and bare,” Carney concludes, “when backed into a corner.” Here again dichotomies are being challenged, as Carney’s language breaks down the barriers between gentle and savage, between surface and depth.”

Thanks! This made my day.

10/11/15

Things have still been quiet lately, which is my own fault. Though we did move, and I am trying to find myself again.

In May I was a poetry carnival barker with the incomparable Joey Gould. It was a windy day but we pulled it off.

Last month I attended the last installment of Theater of Words and Music, which was bittersweet. I did read a few poems I am still working on, and it was a nice gathering, a nice send off. I will miss this community of talented writers, artists, and musicians.

I have to make a conscious effort to get back into writing and submitting and becoming the person I used to be, or at least thought I was.

I have taken a position as a social media intern for Narrative Technologies. I wrote more about this on the blog page of this site, however, I would love for you to follow us along and interact with us as much as you’d like. Here are the links: Zoetic Press Facebook / Zoetic Press Twitter/ Lithomobilus Facebook /Lithomobilus Twitter

I am hoping to have more news soon, just please, if you know me, yell in my face constantly that I should be writing and not goofing off watching reruns of Bob’s Burgers.

5/1/15– Things have been quiet as of late. However, I read at the March gathering for Theater of Words and Music in Salem, MA, and there was a write-up about it here; Golden Walkman revisited some of their favorite features from 2014, including my poem “Lust”, and I will be preforming as a carnival barker at the Mass Poetry Festival Poetry Carnival tomorrow from 11-2 at the Salem Commons!

My writing is still stagnant. I have so many ideas and so little time, and when I do have the time I am not comfortable enough to get into my writing stride. Being in a basement for 10 months has not been kind to me.
A few friends have published works that can be found on the links page.
The Antioch community lost a peer last week, Daniel Reinhold. He was a brilliant and sweet man. His loss hurts.

Me, reading a new poem at TWM