Reading through the introduction of “White Winged Doves: A Stevie Nicks Poetry Anthology,” it’s clear that its editors have very different relationships with the queen of rock and roll.
“I’ve grown up with her, the older sister I never had,” writes Collin Kelley, poet and executive editor of Rough Draft Atlanta. “Her poetry turned into songs that have sustained me for fifty years.”
“Rumours” was the first album Kelley ever bought, and Fleetwood Mac was his first concert. At this point, he said, he has seen Nicks in concert at least 15 times, maybe more. In contrast, his co-editor, author Megan Volpert, has seen Nicks live exactly once – and the only reason she was there was because Chrissie Hynde was the opener (Kelley was also at that show).
So, Volpert comes to Nicks from a slightly different angle.
“It’s a simple fact that no one has done more to advance the mainstream proliferation of witchcraft in America than Stevie Nicks,” Volpert writes in her introduction. “For this service, she is my sister, and this book is in honor of that. We don’t always like our sisters, but we love them no matter what.”
Despite the different perspectives that Kelley and Volpert hold about Nicks, they can agree that however they feel, she’s someone who has forced them – who has forced the world at large – to sit up and pay attention.
“Even though our opinions are disparate, I would say that we’ve both paid Stevie attention over a sustained period of time,” Volpert said. “Whether you call that cultural criticism or fandom is a matter of debate, and hair splitting at some point. But we both have paid immense attention to her over time.”
After roughly two years of work, “White Winged Doves” will be released on June 16 by Madville Publishing.
Ahead of the book release, Volpert and Kelley, along with some contributors to the anthology, will do an in-person reading at Decatur Library Auditorium on May 18 at 7 p.m. The lineup of poets includes Julie E. Bloemeke, Amber Dodds, Danita Dodson, Mattie Frye, Karen Head, Karen Paul Holmes, Maria Illich, Sheema Kalbasi, Nikkie Lee, JC Reilly, Linda Sands, Valerie A. Smith, Gale Thompson, and William Walsh.
Georgia Center for the Book is also hosting a virtual reading on May 26 at 7 p.m., which is also Nicks’ 78th birthday.
For the more than 50 years that Nicks has been in the spotlight, she has continued to command the public’s attention – whether it be through her work, her personal life, or her public persona. The longevity alone makes her worthy of an anthology. Earlier this month, she popped up at the Met Gala to sing a surprise rendition of the Fleetwood Mac hit “Landslide” with pop star Sabrina Carpenter.
“As evidenced by her appearance at the Met Gala [on May 4], which is all anybody is talking about – that dress, the performance with Sabrina Carpenter – she looks amazing, she sounds amazing, she’s back out on tour,” Kelley said. “She remains a relevant icon, just judging by the number of posts I’ve seen everywhere.”
When it came to how to honor Nicks, poetry was a no-brainer. Kelley and Volpert first met through poetry at the Austin International Poetry Festival. They’ve worked together on other poetry projects, but this is the first time that both of their names have appeared on the cover.
“It is special to us in terms of a commemorative portrayal of our similarities and differences and our friendship,” Volpert said.
But for as much as poetry means to the co-editors and their relationship, it was also the perfect medium for Nicks and her work. Kelley pointed out that so many of Nicks’ lyrics started as poems in her notebooks. The song lyrics stem from those poems, and then different collaborators help round out the music.
“Stevie is much more a poet than she is a songwriter,” Volpert said. “Compositionally speaking, a large portion of her songs were not generated by her creatively. They were at least done in collaboration.”
The duo said they received somewhere between 200 and 300 submissions when they began compiling the book. They both read every submission separately, blindly ranked them without knowing the other’s opinion, and tallied the scores. For the most part, they had similar feelings about what to include.
“When we came back and looked at each other’s scores, it was like, ‘Well, there you go!’” Kelley said. “Then we just kind of came to a compromise on a couple of the others.”
The biggest debate was borne of agreement, said Volpert. One poet, Valerie A. Smith, submitted so many good poems that the duo had trouble deciding which ones to include. They settled on two: “You’re a Few Years Older Than Me” and “Fleetwood Mac: A Package Deal.”
Initially, Kelley envisioned that the anthology would be broken down into sections or perhaps chronologically, following the arc of Nicks’ career. But the range of topics the submissions covered left no common threads or clear differentiations to help structure the book. Eventually, the editors decided to publish the poems alphabetically, and leave it at that.
“These poets just show the range of how Stevie Nicks has affected so many people in so many different ways,” Kelley said. “I just think it’s a testament to the power of her music and her longevity that so many people come to her in so many different ways and find solace or inspiration or comfort, or whatever they find there.”
