AUTHOR PROFILE
Ken’s latest collection of short, wiry fiction, “Constant Animals”, can be obtained from Barking Moose Press, or Amazon. Next collection of mildly to brazenly speculative poetry, “Victims of a Failed Civics”, due out late October 2016. He often serves as strange, bewildering eye-candy at his wife’s power lifting affairs, where she is one of the most celebrated female power lifters of all time. His poetry of late has been sunning in “Analog”, “Asimov’s”, “Poet Lore”, “The Kentucky Review”; and his fiction has yowled in “Spank the Carp”, “Red Truck”, “Café Irreal”, “Bellows American Review”. More to come.
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Why do you write?
Often I write merely to better form my understanding of a situation or circumstance I find curious. I like to make a speculation, and then find out where it leads. I like to share my learning and hope that what I have found will settle in the brains of others like a cold spike driven through the forehead. Nothing is more satisfying than having someone change their thought pattern due to having read something written by a stranger. I am not looking for ‘how cute’ moments, I am looking for ‘hey, I never thought of that’ moments. Some poems and stories are gentle comfort, pleasant diversion. I want mine to come at you with an ax, chase you round and round the coffee table, convince you they have mayhem in their hearts.
What other creative activities are you involved in?
As an artist, none. As audience, the wife and I enjoy live theater and dance. There are two nearby ‘little’ theaters, several university affiliated theaters, a professional theater, and a small community theater. I’ve seen “Waiting for Godot” live three times, and my wife will kill me if I drag her to a fourth. I prefer odd, content driven productions, but I’ve seen a lot of Shakespeare live, even enjoy comedies and mysteries. In dance, we have seen classical ballet, but we go more for modern ballet and interpretive dance. I like a choreography hung on a Glass composition.
Who is your favorite author and why?
How is this for a dodge: it varies. I love Randall Jarrell and his work from the end of his career. He was able to capture the mundane and elevate it to the fabric that defines a life. Charles Simic can paint you into a corner. The later work of James Tate (“Return to the City of White Donkeys” is brilliant). Tate pounces at you. He sets the circumstance, then taps you on the shoulder with the conclusion. And often that conclusion is a swift, clear blast of air from the Antarctic, cleansing the obscuring microbes from the sweaty amen corners of the brain.
Tell us about the mechanics of how you write.
Pen, in a college ruled 9.5x6 notebook. Very specific about the size of the notebook, unless we are traveling – in which case I use a standard sized college notebook that I carry in my traveling pack. No outlines. I have a general idea of what I want to study, and I start out and try to run as fast as the poem or story is running. Occasionally, I may skip ahead and write the end, but usually not. I seldom know exactly where the piece is going to end up. I kind of have the road map, but sometimes there are shortcuts or side trips and sometimes the piece has evolved to where the end I had in mind, even sometimes the idea, is no longer appropriate. With poems, I usually do an immediate revision; with stories, usually the revision waits for the typing in at the computer. I revise as I type it in for both stories and poems. Usually, a poem is about done at that point, but a story may take two or three more revisions. There may be revisions as I send it out looking hungrily for a home. Sometimes, I will have a copy of the version I sent out, and a copy of a revision waiting to murder it when it comes back.
Anyone can write, but revisions make a writer. Sometimes I revise things after they have been published. You see your work in a new script, in a new house, cuddling new friends, and you can separate yourself from it and tell it to stand up straight, not run on so much, stop garbling its metaphors.
Luckily, I do both ‘literary’ work and pulp. I see no difference between the two. The poem that flashes too much skin to the 32,000 readers that get “Analog” is really no different from the poem that waits for its time to fan dance for 140 readers on the web or in a staple stitched local literary magazine. When I sit down to write, I do not consider the market, I consider what I want to do when I finally get the reader’s brain out of his or her skull and the poem or story is polishing the subject’s engrams. Later, determining the market for the work is an entirely different skill set.
Anyone can write, but revisions make a writer. Sometimes I revise things after they have been published. You see your work in a new script, in a new house, cuddling new friends, and you can separate yourself from it and tell it to stand up straight, not run on so much, stop garbling its metaphors.
Luckily, I do both ‘literary’ work and pulp. I see no difference between the two. The poem that flashes too much skin to the 32,000 readers that get “Analog” is really no different from the poem that waits for its time to fan dance for 140 readers on the web or in a staple stitched local literary magazine. When I sit down to write, I do not consider the market, I consider what I want to do when I finally get the reader’s brain out of his or her skull and the poem or story is polishing the subject’s engrams. Later, determining the market for the work is an entirely different skill set.
Finally, what do you think about Carp, the fish, not our website?
Where I lived for the years between the ages of approximately 11 and 19 there were two lakes. One had a happy community of bass and bream and the occasional catfish. The other was the kingdom of carp. Almost nothing else was ever caught in that lake. I hate to admit it to my current three betta fish (who get along well with my four cats), but I used to go fishing for carp: bread ball on a hook with a sinker to keep it on the bottom. What was insidious about this is that I could not stand the taste of carp. But I caught them and released them. Many an afternoon I would sit in the grass at lakeside, waiting for the line to go taut, and then the fight would begin. A three or four pound carp will put up a thrilling struggle. A larger carp would make you wonder who was catching whom. I have not fished in forty years, but I still see carp at the local zoo, where they roil in the shallows of the water barrier separating people from the rhinoceros, watusi cattle, and mountain zebras. They pop their heads out of the water and mouth their hungers and desires at us and we look at them and have no clue what to do.