By Kirby

KIRBY’s work includes She (KFB, 2024), Last Licks (Anstruther Press, 2024), Behold (2023), a stage adaption of Poetry is Queer (Palimpsest Press, 2021), and This Is Where I Get Off (Permanent Sleep Press, 2019). Their column The First Time is a regular feature at Send My Love To Anyone. They are the publisher at knife | fork | book kirbyshe.com

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Reason 1: “What is my family going to say?”

Passage from Poetry is Queer, p. 202–205:

My mom plans a visit around the same time I’m slated to read/launch a new anthology, Quickies, and we run into its editor, Jim Johnstone, and he asks, “Kirby, is this your mother?” A bit incredulous. “Are you attending Kirby’s reading tonight? Have you heard him before?” And not missing a beat… [she says] “What’s the big deal? We’re all adults here.” God, I love her. Transitioning from being the mother who “is never going to accept this” to “we’re all adults here.” Yes, in many ways, I’m fortunate. I didn’t get tossed out on the streets, or beaten, or disowned. My parents ended up loving and wanting me. 

The important thing that happened between us is that I didn’t decide ahead of time what, if anything, was going to be okay with them. Hell, I assumed the opposite. I was prepared to change my last name, move out, live my life entirely separately. I even wanted my remains to be taken to the only place I knew where I was not a criminal under the law (Denmark, the single spot on the globe at that time). I decided I wasn’t going to allow my life or my love to be treated as anything less than equal. That was my line in the sand. Meet me there or not. “Hell, my mom doesn’t even know this book exists.” Also, I decided not to present my life or my sexuality as an issue, but a given. Straight people don’t think about it (I mean themselves as straight). Much like white people don’t think about their whiteness. They are unencumbered. Like the rest of the(ir) world. I’m sorry, who am I acting straight for? Do you think what I want is mere acceptance? Plus, both of my parents knew long before I mentioned it in the bathroom when my mom was straightening my 15-year-old curls. “Mom, I think I’m homosexual and would like to see a therapist.” 

And while I was super pissed that they didn’t say or ask or do anything earlier that may or may not have spared me significant years of self-hatred, now knowing that piece of information is revelatory. They didn’t admonish me, but encouraged me in the things that held interest. Specifically, my mom would drop me off every Saturday at the Toledo Museum of Art, where I took music appreciation classes and discovered every nook and cranny the glorious space opened up for me. And Wally, he did two things that were above and beyond. He took me to my weekly clarinet lessons and sat outside to hear me play (knowing when I didn’t practice enough, but always encouraging). Then on weekends, he would golf with my older brother in the mornings and make it home in time to take me to a matinee of my choosing. Such love. I think I blew it with my dad—when he showed interest in me, I didn’t know how to enter or speak to him about his life until close to his death, when cancer had pretty much taken over his body before he had anything checked. On a visit home, he once confessed to me in the garage, “Hell, Jeff, I’d sooner have AIDS than go through what I’m going through,” and though he couldn’t have known, I understood it was a “failure” he would never recover from. It was Wally alone who said, “We had better start listening to Jeff, or we’re going to lose him.” Directly to my mom. 

That said more to me about the man than I had ever known. I’m sad I didn’t know him more. Don’t decide for your parents, for others, based upon your own shame. Never place yourself as an obstacle, or anything other than the beauty that is yours. By doing so, you invite others to do likewise and lose those you were going to lose anyway. It’s you I care about. Not them. What would be the quality of our meeting if I was the only one deciding for both of us if I was worthy or not? Give me the goods. Someone to be met. Fuck it up, make a mess, brilliantly. Please don’t get it right. Show me how gay. I’ll shine right back at you. 

Reason 2: “Can you read this and tell me if it’s any good?”

Guess what? Look at the shelves around you. 95% of the crap that gets published is exactly that. Still, there’s pages glued together with a cover. CBC tells us there are 44 Canadian poetry collections coming out this fall. And, that’s a ‘select list.’ As a poet, if I made the CBC list, I would ask myself, “Oh no, Kirby, what is it you’re doing wrong?” It’s a “nothingburger.” It gives you at best a week of posts saying “I’m on the list.”

Aim higher. What is it exactly you want to do? Accomplish? And what are you doing daily to realize what it is you’ve set out to do? Because that is the only success there is. Doing what it is you’ve set out to do. Because, if you’re in this for the money, it’s not going to work. You’re going to burn out and be in debt. Probably in reverse order. 

I don’t know anyone in the business, who’s still in the business, who is not supported by other means. I currently don’t know of a single publisher who’s making any money.

Reason 3: Your idea is too “fixed,” not allowing for other creative possibilities.

What interests me more than anything else is what surprises, delights.

“Where is your Self to be found? Always in the deepest enchantment you’ve experienced.”

Start small. Create poetry pamphlets. Some examples are:

• Erella Vent 5 Days on the Road https://www.printedmatter.org/catalog/5000
• John Nyman Two Houseplants from Above penteracpress.com
• Cody Caetano Pleasure Dome Poems https://www.codycaetano.com/pleasure-dome-poems 
• Jo Ianni Four https://apt9press.com/
• R. Kolewe Reading Pamphlets
• Slow Poetry in America https://dalemartinsmith.com/slow-poetry-in-america-newsletter/
• Michael Casteels Puddles of Sky Press https://puddlesofskypress.com/chapbooks.html
• Cameron Anstee https://apt9press.com/
• Anstruther https://www.anstrutherpress.com/

John Elizabeth Stintzi “If you adore someone, tell them.”

Never underestimate the power of kindness. Tenderness. That is never forgotten.