KIRBY : part one

KIRBY’s work includes POETRY IS QUEER (Palimpsest Press, 2021), WHAT DO YOU WANT TO BE CALLED? (Anstruther Press, 2020), THIS IS WHERE I GET OFF (Permanent Sleep Press, 2019), SHE’S HAVING A DORIS DAY (KFB, 2017) and editor of GUEST #16 (above/ground), NOT YOUR BEST No. 2, (KFB, 2021). They are the publisher, purveyor of fine poetry at knife | fork | book and can be found at poetryisqueer.com 

How does a poem begin?

By sitting down to it. 

I take notes, write lines throughout each day, but it’s only when I sit down to it that the work gets done. Most mornings. 

Deadlines work quite well for me, because I'm a workhorse, and when I know something has to be done, I sit down to it.

I’m also really good at titles, strangely, they’ll often come first. Or a phrase, something I might’ve heard, seen, smelled, tasted, or read. Springboards. My poems can be quite conversational.