There are the themes common to so many of us: parenthood, love of nature, the isolation of the pandemic. But then poet Kathleen McGookey takes a flight of imagination as her prose poems veer to the surreal: glowing golden vials of dreams on a shelf, a mailbox that steams and is an open portal to hell. McGookey reads from her fifth book-length poetry collection, Paper Sky (Press 53, 2024). She is also the author of three poetry chapbooks.
“For a lot of years, I would say probably 25 years, I’ve just been writing prose poems, which are poems without any line breaks,” McGookey says. “They are poems in little paragraphs. I really like that form. One thing I like about it is that it doesn’t call attention to itself as a poem—it looks very approachable. I think it’s a nice way to invite the reader in.”
McGookey says that she writes on a regular basis, but often, as she sits down to do so, inspiration evades her. She remains seated until she finds it and invites her muse into her work.
“Often, for me, inspiration comes second,” she says. “I live in a rural area. I am surrounded by trees and by a field right outside my office window, and I think that field comes into a lot of my poems … I would take some deep breaths to calm myself and begin by describing what I saw.”
When it comes to writing poetry, McGookey says she has two ways of writing—poems that are grounded in the physical world, “and then these other poems that are so strange and surreal, the things that are going on inside my head if I let my imagination get carried away.”
McGookey has taught creative writing at Hope College, Interlochen Arts Academy, and Western Michigan University, and lives in Middleville, Michigan, with her family.
Along with authors Kathleen Rabbers and Natalie Tomlin, Kathleen McGookey will be reading at Michigan News Agency on October 5, at 3 p.m. Her book launch, open to all, will take place online on Zoom on October 15 at 7 p.m.
On November 2, at 1 p.m., she will read at Kazoo Books, and on November 9, at 2 p.m., at the Zhang Legacy Collection Center.
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