SOURCE: Hauptman, Robert. “Literature in Search of an Audience.” Catholic Library World 59, no. 4 (January/February 1988): 161–62.

In the following review of Cities, Hauptman describes Kelly's prose as highly pleasurable.

Robert Kelly has been publishing his work for almost three decades. He is respected as a prolific poet and innovator; he is honored among peers; and he is adjulated by disciples. But far too few know his Cities; too few realize that it is one of the most tantalizingly beautiful travelogues ever witten. For sixty-five lyrical pages Kelly sings of Jaouedda, Ahampura, Ára, Wuara, Lyonesse, and many other secret cities—exotic, esoteric, and enticing. In 1974, three years after Cities appeared, Italo Calvino brought out an English edition of his Invisible Cities. These brief descriptions are prosaic, basically uninventive, and gropingly epigrammatic. The drab, mildly imaginative ramblings predictably garnered lavish praise. John Updike, in the New Yorker,” emoted: “[Calvino] has produced...