DAVID KIRBY

A black and white full body shot of David Kirby.

David Kirby’s latest books are a poetry collection, Help Me, Information and a textbook modestly entitled The Knowledge: Where Poems Come From and How to Write Them. David teaches at Florida State University and is currently on the editorial board of Alice James Books.

Poe says the death of a beautiful woman is the most poetical topic

in the world, but I’m not buying it. There are a lot of topics 

more poetical than the death of a beautiful woman—actually, 

there’s just one, which is…

The ideal speaker in a poem is like your smart neighbor, the one you talk to on the sidewalk who’s happy to give you their banana bread recipe and let you know you can borrow a chainsaw if you need it and agrees that such-and-such a public figure is an idiot even if not everyone knows that yet. Some people have called me a humorous or comic poet as if that’s mainly what I am, which is fine as long as they mean it as a compliment. But I’d rather be called a generous poet

May 26, 2024

June 2, 2024

May 19, 2024