SOURCE: Howard, Tom. Review of Doctor of Silence, by Robert Kelly. Small Press 7 (June 1989): 39.

In the following review of Doctor of Silence, Howard contends that Kelly creates a new definition for fiction.

Fiction, according to the American Heritage Dictionary, is “an imaginative creation or a presence that does not represent actuality but has been invented.” In the twenty-seven stories in Doctor of Silence, poet Robert Kelly not only fulfils these criteria but expands them to create an entirely new definition of literature. Kelly smears human experience on glass slides, nonchalantly inserts them into a microscope, and then twists the lens until the picture he is presenting is perfectly sharp. These fantastic images loom large for a moment, leaving the reader slightly dizzy from the intensity of his vision. There is an uneasy feeling that to look away from the carefully ordered text is to admit that the world...