Kristina W Kelly is joining us today to talk about her collection of poems, Imaginari. Here’s the publisher’s description:
Imaginari is a book of sc-ifi, science, and fantasy poetry. Paired with original color photography, this collection of poetry holds a glimpse of the human experience disguised in fairytales and stardust. Step into lyrics of science, science fiction, and fantasy where robots fight for their autonomy, fairies wage war against goblins, and humanity reaches for what awaits them in the stars.
What’s Kristina’s favorite bit?
When I failed to become a robot programmer for missions to Mars, I became a poet. Well, that’s sort of right. I’ve been a poet and writer long before I began trying to get a masters in computer science with a focus on AI programming languages. The latter wasn’t for me to finish. Though I did want to work for NASA sending robots to explore. That part of me still bubbles up. Like in my poem “Input Needed” in my sci-fi, science, and fantasy poetry book IMAGINARI. It’s a poem about a bot trying to rewrite its program after the humans destroyed most everything and I use the variable creator #define that’s similar to C++ throughout the poem. The robot sees what its creators have done to beautiful earth and wants to help undo the harm.
Throughout this collection I wanted to inspire others to create by showing different ways poetry can exist. I was once told writing was a waste of time. I’m here to defy that most stubbornly. I have a poem about the last centaur and the last mermaid finding each other, a poem that’s about my love of Daft Punk music presented as the thrill of peering at the cosmos, a poem that has my sons wearing Saturn’s rings as a metaphor to hoping they can become their true authentic selves, and a poem that’s an Easter egg hunt of all my favorite SFF books as a blueprint for how to write a story. There’s whimsy and silly, but then there’s serious and emotionally complex. I wanted a little bit of everything that inspires me and the results of creativity, out there to spark that for others. So I made up the Imaginari – the imaginary beings that help us be imaginative and create that’s the theme of this book.
I love combining fantasy and sci-fi which is what I did in IMAGINARI. Even with my photography that’s throughout, like a hummingbird feeder that looks like a nebula and a macro image of a plant that looks like if a red shirt touched it there might be one less away-party member. I want people to see the fantastical all around them and inspire creativity. To see a galaxy of possibilities, fairies in the flowers, and tales trapped in our souls. And even though we might not be directly making robots for space, we can marvel at what already is and create what we want it to be. Even if it’s a rhyming couplet tucked in a page.
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BIO:
Kristina W Kelly writes fantasy, sci-fi, and poetry and loves being a geek. Her coauthored novel, Trials of the Innermost, is book one in the epic science fantasy series The Etherea Cycle. Her debut sapphic fantasy romance adventure, Tavern Tale, releases January 7, 2025. She is the author of Imaginari, a sci-fi and fantasy poetry collection. Kristina is a trumpet player but dabbles in other instruments, plays video games, and tends to her flower garden and two children in Indiana. Several of her short stories have received honorable mention, silver honorable mention, and semi-finalist from Writers of the Future. She is amazed by nature and enjoys painting vivid scenes for her readers. She loves going on new adventures in the great wide somewhere (sometimes just by picking up a new book).
