An Inviting Conversation with Kevin Goodan
Courtesy of Alice James and Poet
Kevin Goodan was born in Montana, earned his BA from the University of Montana, and worked as a firefighter for ten years with the U.S. Forest Service before receiving his MFA from University of Massachusetts-Amherst in 2004. His books include Spot Weather Forecast, Anaphora, Winter Tenor, and In the Ghost-House Acquainted, all from Alice James Books. His poems have been published in Ploughshares and other journals. He currently lives in the Upper Valley region of New Hampshire.
I had the pleasure of asking Kevin about his recent publication with Alice James, what a favorite poem of his, along with the strengths of storytelling through poetry, and so much more.
UZOMAH: How is a poet similar to an artist, and how is visual art similar to a poet or writer?
KEVIN: This is a very good question, one I have spent some time thinking about. One always hears the phrase “Poets and Writers”, meaning someone has made a distinction between two things I believe are the same. To me, a poet is a writer, and all writers, when they are writing their best works, are writing poetry. This view also extends to Art. Artists work in various mediums to express the truths within themselves, and outside themselves. I am much more comfortable being called an artist whose medium is language than any other nomenclature. I’m not a big fan of categories.
U: What unique strength do you bring to the art of storytelling through poetry? How do you weave your narratives to captivate your audience, leaving them spellbound and inspired?
K: Boy, another good question! Besides a kind of polite stubbornness and a capacity to see delicate details in the world around me, I’m uncertain what my strength might be. Stubbornness, because I continue writing and creating by whatever means is open to me, regardless of the outcome. I write what feels urgent to me and has no other way into the world than the language I’m capable of. That language often employs images of rural life because that is where I exist (I tried to live near NYC once, but only for a short time… too much noise). I also trust that the language might express an inward music, and in doing so, some narrative tendon threads through the work.
U: Your poems are a vibrant tapestry of banter and wordplay. How have your personal experiences influenced your choice of language and wordplay in your work?
K: If there is any banter surely it is the banter-of-one. It is the wordplay that arises from a slightly solitudinous existence (cue the addled man walking the fields gesticulating and shouting to the air). I make time to ruminate and sculpt language more than what is probably legal.
U: When not writing, what do you do with your time? Are any outside interests inspiring your poetry or influencing your writing style?
K: There are a few things I do outside of writing that may or may not influence my writing but are certainly necessary to who I am as a person. I teach part-time at a couple local colleges, and when I’m not teaching, I do some small-scale, single-person selective logging for a few friends. We function on the barter system: I do the work and get some of the wood which is how I heat my home in the winter. This way, I keep the mind and the body active, and remain attentive to what language comes to me.
U: What poets would you suggest reading to someone starting out as a poet?
K: There are so many ways to answer this. I believe we live in a time where poetry is really thriving. So many good writers are living and working today (and there is such a deep history of written works from different languages and cultures available in translations), that it seems a disservice to try and suggest just a few. I would tell someone who feels the calling to write, to read promiscuously. Even works we don’t like can teach us something, and thus have important value, as they give us tools to put in our writerly toolboxes. Be sure to read Shakespeare, be certain to read Dante.
U: In addition to your recently published collection of poems, Tell us about some of the books you've enjoyed in the past year. What has been your favorite to read and why? What books have inspired your poetry or influenced your writing style?
K: I really nerd out to the writing of John Banville, and his non de plume Benjamin Black. I am just wading into his new book The Drowned, and I always get tingly when I open one of his books. I’m also working my way through Glitter Road by January Gill O’Neil. I find myself pausing in her work, taking a deep breath, letting her language sift through me before reading slowly on. I am reading October Child by Linda Bostrom Knausgard, and A Time For Everything by Karl Ove Knausgaard. It is interesting to see how their lives as well as their language are intertwined. Finally, I voraciously read Edgar Kunz’s new book Fixer. I would suggest this book to anyone, poetry-lover or not.
The books that have inspired my work and continue to inspire me every time I return to them are just a few. Touchstones, if you will. I return to Jack Gilbert’s The Great Fires, Linda Gregg’s Too Bright to See, Frank Stanford’s The Light The Dead See, and Tomaz Salamun’s The Four Questions Of Melancholy. When I feel lost, they guide me back to my core.
U: Could you share the publishing journey? How did you handle any rejections?
K: In the creative life rejection is around every corner. Not kidding. At. All. One must have faith in the work, in their talent, in that little voice inside saying “create me”. As most young and not-so-young writers do, I submitted my first manuscript to competitions. I still have all my rejection notices in various heavy boxes in the basement. Haven’t a clue why. Maybe it’s a measure of humility. Maybe I’m a literary packrat. I will say I am truly grateful for the work that’s found a home at Alice James Books. They are a press that is willing to take risks publishing work that might fall outside the purview of what is dominant contemporary poetry. I love being an Alice…
U: If you could pick one poem from your current collection, In the Days that Followed, that best describes you as a poet, what would it be and why?
K: It’s hard to discern which poem describes oneself, as they are all small pieces of the author, but if I had to choose one, say my life depended on it, I would have to choose the poem on pg. 31, SOMETIMES I CAN PULL BEING VISIBLE. I believe maybe I drop the mask of the artist just a bit and allow more of myself to be revealed.
U: Similarly, do you have a favorite poem from your collection, and if so, what is it, and why does it hold a special place for you?
K: The first poem is always (for me) the opening to writing something new and mysterious. I often write poems in the sequential manner they are placed in the book. The first poem is always imbued with mysterious potential… I don’t know what follows, don’t know how the manuscript will end, don’t know what the book will be about. And yet, something of the body of the work exists in the first poem, in the first line of that poem: SHALL I INVOKE?
U: What is your go-to literary device when you're crafting your poetic narratives? How does it help you express your thoughts and emotions?
K: I don’t know if there is any cogent go-to device per say, but I do get up early and sit at a desk with cup after cup of coffee. Mostly, I sit in silence, though sometimes I will listen to either Arvo Part’s compositions, or songs in languages I don’t know in order to pay attention to the emotional carriage of the music. Mostly, I just listen into the silence should language avail me.
For more information about Kevin’s book from Alice James, please visit the site here. The magazine also did a highlight of the book which can be found here.
