On October 6th, Colson Hall was treated to a poetry reading by WVU MA and MFA alumna Kelly Moffett. Kelly started out by reading from A Thousand Wings, which she wrote after spending time visiting convents and a Trappist monk monastery. She also read from her forthcoming collection, bird blind.

While reading, Kelly often added transitional phrases to her poems that listeners following along in the book did not find printed. During the Q&A portion of the event, she talked about the differences between the voice spoken aloud and the voice on the page. “I think on the page, because it’s taking such a slow pace, some of the lines can be digested fully,” she said. “But whenever I’m reading aloud, I sink into this space of a voice speaking to the self or a definite you, so I try to make it more colloquial.”

After the reading, Kelly went to Hatfield’s with Mary Ann Samyn and several MFA students, where the group talked about graduate school and poetry over lunch.

At Hatfield’s.

Kelly Moffett has two books of poetry and one chapbook. Her third book, bird blind, will be released this fall. Her work has appeared in journals such as Colorado Review, Cincinnati Review, and Rattle. She is an Assistant Professor at Northern Kentucky University and a graduate of the WVU MA and MFA programs.