Keith Flynn

Poet

Asheville, NC
North Carolina US

Author's Bio

 Keith Flynn (www.keithflynn.net) is the award-winning author of eight books, including six collections of poetry: most recently Colony Collapse Disorder (Wings Press, 2013) and The Skin of Meaning (Red Hen Press, Spring, 2020), and a collection of essays, entitled The Rhythm Method, Razzmatazz and Memory: How To Make Your Poetry Swing (Writer's Digest Books, 2007). From 1984-1999, he was lyricist and lead singer for the nationally acclaimed rock band, The Crystal Zoo, which produced three albums: Swimming Through Lake Eerie (1992), Pouch (1996), and the spoken-word and music compilation, Nervous Splendor (2003). He is currently touring with a supporting combo, The Holy Men, whose album, LIVE at Diana Wortham Theatre, was released in 2011. He is the Executive Director and producer of the TV show, “LIVE at White Rock Hall,” and Animal Sounds Productions, both which create collaborations between writers and musicians in video and audio formats. His award-winning poetry and essays have appeared in many journals and anthologies around the world, including The American Literary Review, The Colorado Review, Poetry Wales, Five Points, Poetry East, The Southern Poetry Anthology, The Poetics of American Song Lyrics, Writer’s Chronicle. The Cimarron Review, Rattle, Shenandoah, Word and Witness: 100 Years of NC Poetry, Crazyhorse, and many others. He has been awarded the Sandburg Prize for poetry, a 2013 NC Literary Fellowship, the ASCAP Emerging Songwriter Prize, the Paumanok Poetry Award and was twice named the Gilbert-Chappell Distinguished Poet for NC. Flynn is founder and managing editor of The Asheville Poetry Review, which began publishing in 1994.

Publications & Prizes

Books:
The Skin of Meaning (Red Hen Press, 2020)
,
Colony Collapse Disorder (Wings Press, 2013)
,
The Golden Ratio (Iris Press, 2007)
,
The Rhythm Method, Razzmatazz and Memory: How To Make Your Poetry Swing (Writer's Digest Books, 2007)
,
The Lost Sea (Iris Press, 2000)
,
The Book of Monsters (Urthona Press, 1994)
Journals:
Appalachian Journal
, ,
Arts Journal
,
Asheville Poetry Review
,
Black Mountain Review
,
Black October
, ,
Bombay Gin
,
Bone & Flesh
, , , , , ,
Comstock Review
, ,
Defined Providence
, , , , , ,
Margie
,
Nantahala
,
New Arts Review
, ,
Nexus
, ,
Now & Then
,
Oyster Boy Review
, ,
Pine Mountain Sand and Gravel
, ,
Poems & Plays
, ,
Poetry Wales
, , , ,
Shenandoah
,
Small Press Review
, , ,
Sulphur River Literary Review
, ,
Takahe
,
The American Literary Review
,
The Minnesota Review
,
Writer's Chronicle
Prizes won: 

He has been awarded the Sandburg Prize for poetry, a 2013 NC Literary Fellowship, the ASCAP Emerging Songwriter Prize, the Paumanok Poetry Award and was twice named the Gilbert-Chappell Distinguished Poet for NC.

Personal Favorites

Favorite authors: 
William Blake, Wallace Stevens, Pablo Neruda, William Carlos Williams, Graham Greene, Gore Vidal, James Baldwin, Fred Chappell, Gwendolyn Brooks, Anthony Burgess, Jean Genet, William Faulkner, John Steinbeck, Philip Roth, Richard Wright, Federico Garcia Lorca, Ursula K. Le Guin, Henry Miller, Theodore Roethke, Cormac McCarthy, Galway Kinnell, Lorine Niedecker, Pierre Reverdy, John Berryman, Frank Bidart, Octavio Paz, Andre Malraux, Bob Dylan, Anne Sexton, Tennessee Williams, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Gary Snyder, Wendell Berry, Jim Harrison, Elizabeth Bishop, Donald Revell, Joy Harjo, Margaret Atwood, Toni Morrison, Nick Cave, Neil Gaiman, Kurt Vonnegut, James Wolcott, Arthur Rimbaud, Mark Twain, Walt Whitman
What I'm reading now: 
Suttree by Cormac McCarthy, Collected Poems by Jack Gilbert, Leonard da Vinci by Walter Isaacson

More Information

Gives readings: 
Yes
Travels for readings: 
Yes
Identifies as: 
White
Prefers to work with: 
Any
Born in: 
Asheville
Raised in: 
Marshall, NC
North Carolina
Please note: All information in the Directory is provided by the listed writers or their representatives.
Last update: Jun 22, 2020