About the Poems - KK
About the Poems
by Kirsten Kaschock If these poems have something in common other than me, it is me. They differ from other poems I write because at least two of them are more straightforwardly autobiographical than I have patience for. I have very little patience for any of my poems, especially these—whose themes are maudlin: insomnia, death, death, death, and juggling. But the juggling one is actually about death, so there you go—autobiographical. I like to write about moments of impact. Car crash, blind date, divine vengeance. I like to write about the body, specifically Marlene Dietrich’s. Ideas inspire me, but if I can’t get the language surrounding them to firecracker—then I ought to, and sometimes do, let the poem go. I think it is kinder that way. I also like the fabular because I think the word fabular is lovely. I want to make my own poems feel like the gas you might siphon from a Hummer to illegally and freely fuel your own faerie-tale roadster. Pert. Lip-burning. My question is—why would I equate poem with fossil fuel? Is there something about poetry that does not sustain itself? In my poems, what is not self-reliant translates into a question of performance, of audience. Who did the bird die for? And how and where must I, as witness or creator, enlarge and take such small deaths?