{"id":740,"date":"2021-09-22T21:44:00","date_gmt":"2021-09-23T04:44:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/test-inside.ewu.edu\/willowspringsmagazine\/?p=740"},"modified":"2025-02-27T10:39:56","modified_gmt":"2025-02-27T18:39:56","slug":"david-kirby","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/test-inside.ewu.edu\/willowspringsmagazine\/david-kirby\/","title":{"rendered":"Issue 88: David Kirby"},"content":{"rendered":"
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About David Kirby<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

David Kirby teaches at Florida State University. His collection The House on Boulevard St.: New and Selected Poems <\/em>was a finalist for both the National Book Award and Canada\u2019s Griffin Poetry Prize. He is the author of Little Richard: The Birth of Rock \u2018n\u2019 Roll<\/em>, which the Times Literary Supplement <\/em>of London called \u201ca hymn of praise to the emancipatory power of nonsense\u201d and was named one of Booklist<\/em>\u2019s Top 10 Black History Non-Fiction Books of 2010. His latest books are a poetry collection, Help Me, Information<\/em>, and a textbook modestly entitled The Knowledge: Where Poems Come From and How to Write Them<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n

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A Profile of the Author<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Notes on “Galileo,\u201d \u201cThe Return of Martin Guerre\u201d and \u201cImmortal Beloved\u201d<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

A lot of poets\u2019 descriptions of their books these days announce a subject matter: politics, history, relationships, climate change, what have you. Good for them, if the poems are good. But I can\u2019t imagine writing that way. It sounds like journalism to me. I like to stumble around in language, to think less and work more. Some of my Elvii, like singer\/songwriter Leonard Cohen and playwright Tom Stoppard, say they don\u2019t think at all, yet theirs is some of the most beautiful, intelligent, moving work we can watch or listen to.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That said, my poems do share common elements. One of these is humor. That\u2019s a good thing\u2014everybody likes to laugh\u2014but it can work against you. I\u2019ve had people tell me, \u201cI didn\u2019t know poetry could be funny.\u201d That\u2019s understandable, because most of it isn\u2019t. Most poets aren\u2019t funny. Look at their head shots: if you\u2019re not scowling like the lead singer of Mudhoney or the Screaming Trees, nobody\u2019s going to take you seriously. I\u2019m often identified as a funny poet, as though I\u2019m only<\/em> a funny poet. Even my own press says so: if you go to the LSU Press page and tap the icon for Help Me, Information<\/em>, which is my latest book, you\u2019ll see the tags they use to tell booksellers what the book is about begins with \u201cHumor\u201d and only lists \u201cPoetry\u201d second.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But don\u2019t you like to use every tool in the toolbox? I do. Take a look at my three poems in this issue. They\u2019re about heartbreak, suicide, hanging. Ha, ha! Yet there are a couple of chuckles in each. A poem should be like a letter to a friend or a good conversation. A poem should have everything in it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Music, Food, Booze, Tattoos, Kittens, etc.<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

You know that Andy Warhol movie of a man sleeping for five hours? At first Andy thought about casting me, but I blew the audition. I was too boring.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Actually, Warhol is also one of my Elvii. When a reporter asked him who his favorite contemporary artists were, he said, \u201cOh, I like \u2018em all.\u201d That\u2019s me. I eat everything, from chili dogs to foie gras. I like to shake up a craft cocktail, but I like milkshakes, too. I don\u2019t have a pet, but a pet has me: Patsy the cat decided her needs weren\u2019t being met at the neighbor\u2019s house, so she moved in with us (the fact that I\u2019m allergic to her has not altered her plans in the least). I think tattoos are awesome, but I don\u2019t have any. A few years ago a student was over at our house, and I saw she had a tattoo that said, \u201cPoetry is not reflection; it is refraction.\u201d I thought that was pretty good, so I asked, \u201cWho said that?\u201d and my student said, \u201cYou did.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Flaubert said, \u201cBe regular and orderly in your life like a bourgeois, so that you may be violent and original in your work.\u201d That\u2019s me. I want my poems to be as action-packed as those Westerns I used to watch when I was a farm kid in Baton Rouge and rode my bike into town and plunked down my quarter at the Ogden or the Hart or the Paramount. It doesn\u2019t matter who the artist is. The art? That\u2019s what\u2019s important.<\/p>\n\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n

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\"Willow<\/figure>\n\n\n

Three Poems by David Kirby<\/a><\/h2>\n\n

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