Colony Collapse Disorder

Overview

Expansive and innovative, this is the fifth collection from award-winning poet Keith Flynn. A place-based abecedarium, this compilation features two poems representing each letter of the alphabet. Recalling a specific place, city, country, or region, these poems vary in form and texture and are linked to the adjacent poems by a theme, an image, or a single word. The result is a collection filled with historical vignettes and an unerring grasp of contemporary culture. An almanac with inspiring insights into the human condition, this book utilizes a musical language and illustrates the planet's new global challenges.

Reviews

"Keith Flynn’s lyrical travelogue, a revolution of sound and story, celebrates the reader as witness. Not only are we transported to gorgeously-crafted locales, but we are rooted there by the poet’s unerring narrative, transforming each poem with a facet of light, an illuminative hallelujah. Scan the poetic landscape all you want—but you won’t find anything like this."  —Patricia Smith, author, Blood Dazzler

"Colony Collapse Disorder is a book of journeys, journeys across the world, journeys of conscience and witness, journeys of spiritual discovery. Flynn is one of our finest contemporary troubadours, heir to Bop, to the Beats, the poetry of Rock and Roll, the roar of Walt Whitman, and the seduction of cinema. He is a poet of overwhelming energy, in rebellious ballads, stunning life riffs, and wry meditations. In this work we feel a relish for both improvisation and craft, in delicate lyrics of longing, in songs of protest, and progressive commentary on today’s violent and chaotic news. Like the best music, Flynn’s poems bind us together with a shared sense of failure, challenge, joy, and love."  —Robert Morgan, author, Terroir

“Flynn’s words need to be read aloud for the full dramatic impact, but even on the page, they mesmerize the reader with their historical significance and startling juxtapositions. These are original, passionate, vigorous, and musical narratives that roam the full spectrum of the art. Keith Flynn is a true original, and a national treasure.”  —Comstock Review

“Keith Flynn has achieved new heights, not only with language and the American vernacular, but he writes with an immense historical sense and passionate individualism. Flynn’s poetry and voice are absolutely necessary in this country’s vast and diverse poetic landscape, and he is one of our very best contemporary poets.”  —Virgil Suarez, poet, 90 Miles 

"His fifth collection, this book sprawls the globe, moving through different countries, cities, cultures, climates, civilizations, and perspectives. Flynn offers two poems for every letter of the alphabet, and each poem is presented alongside a corresponding location for the beginning letter of that place. (For example: G: Gaza, Palestine; Grand Canyon, Arizona. S: Linares, Spain; San Francisco, California.) The scope is immense geographically, but also in its attempt to put disparate mythologies in dialogue. Each poem is informed by the influence of regional culture, however that might be defined sometimes by history, sometimes by literature, sometimes by the stories that linger in the sound of footsteps walking through East Asia or the mountains of Georgia. . . . Flynn is able to render language as sacred, the visage of wisdom and beauty, resistant to cynicism and irony." —www.JasperColumbia.net

"What Keith Flynn has created, here, is quite amazing in terms of global scale and geopolitical perspective. . . . The word ‘ambitious’ only begins to describe the content or the context of this collection."  —Thomas Crowe, Smokey Mountain News

"In the end, what Keith Flynn has created, here, is quite amazing in terms of global scale and geopolitical perspective. Taking a page from James Joyce's Ulysses, which takes us everywhere while staying somewhere, this ambitious collection is unlike any other that I know. The word "ambitious" only begins to describe the content or the context of this collection. With this book Flynn shows off his intellectual curiosity and has taken a huge leap from previous volumes, becoming a global voice with a single stroke of the pen." — Thomas Crowe, Smokey Mountain News

Author Biography

Keith Flynn is a former lyricist and lead singer for the acclaimed rock band Crystal Zoo; the founder and managing editor of the Asheville Poetry Review; and the author of four poetry collections: The Book of Monsters, The Golden Ratio, The Lost Sea, and The Talking Drum. He is the recipient of the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publisher's Emerging Songwriter Prize, the Paumanok Poetry Award, and the Sandburg Prize for Poetry. He was also twice named the Gilbert-Chappell Distinguished Poet for North Carolina. He lives in Asheville, North Carolina.