Kelly Parsons

In celebration of the life and work of Victoria, BC poet, artist, and medievalist, Kelly Parsons, fellow Canadian poets completed a project she was unable to undertake in the last months of her short life: to write on the small abstracts of BC artist, Carle Hessay. More more on Carle Hessay's art see : https://www.carlehessay.com

The power of abstract art and how it reaches the inner life of each viewer in different ways and at different levels is vividly demonstrated in this collection of poems responding to Carle Hessay's expressive abstracts. Yet, in combination, the poems by these Canadian poets also draw out those elements that ring true for who Carle Hessay was as a person and an artist. In their reach, they also define what abstract art is and why it is still relevant in the 21st century.

Maidie Hilmo's Introduction contextualizes Carle Hessay's dynamic paintings in relation to the forces and ideas that characterized abstract expressionism in the mid twentieth century.

"Remembering Kelly Parsons: Medievalist, Buddhist, and Poet"  by Professor Kathryn-Kerby-Fulton gives a personal account of this important Canadian poet's dual intellectual and spiritual inspiration that is revealed in her poetry.

Poets who responded in their individual ways to Carle Hessay's exciting Canadian abstracts include Karen Ballinger, bill bissett, Dorothy Field, Patrick Friesen, Corinna Gilliland, Judith Heron, Eve Joseph, Linda Olson, Barbara Colebrook Peace, Linda Rogers, Carol Ann Sokoloff, Gray Sutherland, Leonard A. Woods, Patricia Young, Terence Young, and Gail D. Whitter.

This book is of interest to general readers and is suitable as a text for English, Creative Writing, and Art History classes.

For the entire book online, see: https://www.carlehessay.com/page/for_kelly_with_love

For highlights from the live poetry readings from the book launch, see:
https://youtu.be/cs5Hi4WDIZk