This month, Kevin released his new book, Baby in the Night. Written from the perspective of a street smart baby, it conveys the inarticulate instinct. Or how a thought or feeling can be perfectly clear on the inside, but emerge all scattered and snarled. Our conversation took place over email.
Can you remember your baby years? What is your earliest memory?
I have very grainy memories of going to an elementary school and hiding in the coat closet and putting Pop Rocks in my mouth for the first time. That weird percolating of candy on my tongue. I also remember buying a jewelry box-sized container of Mexican jumping beans. I guess those memories are similar?
I also remember walking down the sidewalk around our neighborhood and counting my footsteps every four steps, 1-2-3-4, over and over, and of course never stepping on a crack. I remember my mom making grilled cheese sandwiches with Velveeta and one of those cheese cutters with the metal wire. Those are more like memories from when I was five years old. I don’t think I remember anything before that. I wish I did. Maybe it would have helped with this book.
You’ve published several books in addition to working a full-time job (Powell’s) and running your own press (Future Tense Books). You also have a son, partner and Susan (Kevin’s cat). How do you make time for your creative practice amidst all these demands?
I think I was lucky to not have distractions like the internet and social media and stuff like that when I was really getting more serious with my writing. In the last few years for some reason, I’ve been struggling with my attention span a lot, so I’ve been online more. Maybe it’s the political climate or just getting older and more tired. Sometimes all I want to do is chill with Susan and watch sports highlights on YouTube.
Getting on wellbutrin in 2019 definitely helps. The fact that so many of my projects are collaborative efforts and I don’t want to let anyone down helps. And that satisfaction of making something and seeing it through to the end drives me. It’s still fun. If it stops being fun, I have to stop or pause and rethink what I’m doing and why.
THIS IS NOT A TRICK QUESTION—who are your favorite cancelled poets?
I would say the tragic southern surrealist Frank Stanford, who wrote a lot of stuff that didn’t get a lot of attention and then shot himself in the heart not once, but three times! Overall, I think not enough poets have been cancelled.
Do you believe that literature can save lives?
I think a lot of things can save lives: A good song, a kind gesture, a weekend getaway somewhere warm, an especially delicious pizza, good sex, a comedy special.
But literature? Yes, that too. Perhaps even more so than other things.
To follow up, is there a book or essay or poem that has saved your life? A single line that’s worked on you year after year? A piece of writing that you want tattooed on the inside of your body?
As far as tattoos go, I’ve always been kind of jealous of the one that my friend Zachary Schomburg has. It’s the famous Arom Saroyan one-word poem, which is simply: lighght. I love poetry and essays and literature and I think collectively they’ve saved my life in small, subtle, incremental ways, but I don’t think anything has “saved” my life as much as the love songs of Lionel Richie, especially the ones with the Commodores.