Review/interview: Stevie Nicks poetry collection is a layered ode to song and writer 

The first poem of the Stevie Nicks poetry collection, White Winged Doves — titled “Melodia Maleficarum” (The Song of Witches) by Shylah Addante — includes the lines: “What is a spell, if not a song that lingers? / What is a prophecy, if not a chorus that returns? / What is a witch, if not a woman unafraid / to conjure something greater than herself?” 

And thus, fans of Stevie, poetry and the enduring (perhaps witchy) power of rock ‘n’ roll are merged into a collection much like a house of mirrors: You’re bound to find yourself. 

Curated by Megan Volpert and Collin Kelley, White Winged Doves is made up of 72 poems the co-editors sourced from a variety of wordsmiths who have, at some point, found inspiration through Stevie. As friends and fellow writers on the literary circuit, Volpert and Kelley collaborated easily on the project, one of their many in the years since Kelley became convinced that Volpert should move to Atlanta after seeing her perform in the early aughts at the Austin International Poetry Festival. 

“I immediately thought she was fantastic and thought, ‘I gotta get that energy to Atlanta,’ Kelley says. “I’ve known her so long, I know what her work ethic is and I knew that collaborating on this anthology would be …

“… efficient,” Volpert finishes, laughing. 

White Winged Doves is Kelley’s third anthology; the previous two included The Thrill and The Hurting, on musician Kate Bush, and Mother Mary Comes to Me, a pop culture anthology co-edited with Karen J. Head. Kelley’s love of Stevie Nicks started in childhood; his first Fleetwood Mac show was at the Omni Coliseum in 1982 with his parents. In 1989, he made contact with the star, interviewing her on the phone prior to a show at Lakewood Amphitheater while Nicks had a broken foot and “was in a mood.” All was forgotten backstage at the show, when the songwriter took Kelley’s hand and apologized for her tone during the interview. 

Together, Kelley and Volpert — who grew up with ’90s alternative and wrote the cultural study Why Alanis Morissette Matters — formed a balanced team, resulting in a balanced book of poems. Submissions crept into the hundreds, and, according to Kelley, “a lot of good poets were submitted.” Contributors are based across the nation, but the book has its share of Atlanta-based writers. 

In fact, the wide-reaching results of their call inspired Volpert and Kelley to rethink the book arrangement. 

“We thought there was a way to do something more chronological, but these references are more timeless about who Stevie is,” Volpert says.

“I think what makes White Winged Doves so interesting is how dissimilar the poems are,” Kelley adds. 

Yet the poems share an eerie similarity — a “notable absence,” in the words of Volpert. 

“There’s no talk of the men in her life,” she explains. “Which is a fundamental aspect of her musical process, but no contributors discussed it. We realized her romantic relationships are not important to her fans. There was a willingness to take her on her own strengths.”

“… It was my responsibility to ensure there were witchy poems in the book,” she adds, cheekily. “And there definitely are.” 

Poems in White Winged Doves appear as both lengthy and brief, both sparsely formatted and written as prose. They include provocative titles such as “To Knead Sourdough,” “Still Life of a Star,” “Therapy Dream,” “Betweenness,” “In Another Life You Cut Off My Head” and “How to Wear Stevie Nicks’ Eye Makeup.” 

But as every lover of verse knows, you cannot go on titles alone. The book must be read like a song — passively, actively and often — to understand the effects of Stevie and her music on her poetic fans, and how, without her, life feels less layered, as Maggie Felisberto hints in her poem “Folding Laundry in the Nude.” Felisberto writes: “But my tactile pleasures fail me / When the record stops revolving / And the sound of Stevie Nicks pales / I’m a shadow of a woman / And I shattered our illusions of love.” 

White Winged Doves is approachable despite the pervading stereotypes about contemporary poetry being esoteric. Volpert and Kelley have successfully created a sheaf of poems that speak to a wider audience and remind readers of the relationship between the music we love and its poetic origins on the page. 

“God knows how many notebooks she has,” Kelley remarks with his trademark awe for Nicks. “She’s a poet foremost, and her songs begin as poems.” 

Get the Book 

White Winged Doves: A Stevie Nicks Poetry Anthology. Edited by Collin Kelley and Megan Volpert. Madville Publishing, June 2026. 

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Denise K. James is an ArtsATL senior editor.