Kim AddonizioWhen you enter a Kim Addonizio poem, you never know where you’ll end up. Perhaps a Greek temple or a tourist shop in Assisi or even in an episode of American Horror Story. Addonizio, the author of seven poetry collections, two novels, two story collections, a book of essays, and two volumes on writing poetry, is well-known for her unflinching explorations of love, lust, and mortality. A National Book Award finalist, Addonizio is “a master of compressed intensity who always nails the emotional image” (San Francisco Chronicle). Her latest is Exit Opera (W.W. Norton & Company).
Addonizio shared her thoughts with Identity Theory in a recent interview.
Q: What started you writing poetry? Was there an “a-ha” moment in which you knew you wanted to pursue it?
Kim Addonizio: Oh, there definitely was. I remember just where I was, encountering Plath, I think—whatever I was reading, I felt it. I felt it the way Emily Dickinson described it. I was in my late twenties. It changed my life entirely; I hadn't had much exposure to poetry at all, and then I just knew: this was it, this was my path.
Q: What do you remember about your first poems? Was it a struggle to find your voice?
Kim Addonizio: I don't know about finding one's voice. It changes over time. And has more to do with the voice of the poem—at least, the way I've experienced it. I think my later poems are freer than the earlier ones, more able to shift tonal registers, less tied to earnest narrative. Then again, when I'm not writing poems, I seem to have no idea how to write a decent one. You'd think a voice would be more reliable, but it isn't! It's often fugitive and has to be coaxed. Sometimes it takes a cattle prod.
Q: Mortality is a recurring theme in Exit Opera. Many of the poems are deeply sad, but also playful and humorous. How do you walk the tightrope between these two poles?
Kim Addonizio: The tension between lightness and weight—that balance, or complexity, whatever you call it—seems to me essential. Everyone needs a flashlight in the dark, and mine is often humor. Humor can be a deflection, or a survival mechanism. It's disarming; it's communal; it's a leavening response to the absurdities and challenges of living in a body that's aging and is going to die. And that, as they say, is the good news.
Q: In “Existential Voyage,” you write, “I don’t see/how anyone can cleat-hitch their life to prayer./Who do you think is listening?” and in the poem “In Assisi,” you write, “I’ll probably just go on kneeling before minibars in hotel rooms/in my silk robe of flowers/praising the macadamias.” How might poetry be a response to the futility of prayer?
Kim Addonizio: I have my own relationship to the spiritual. I'm not a fan of organized Western religion. It seems naive, a belief in fairy tales. Not that there isn't magic in the world, but our concepts of it all are so backwards—such a primitive, patriarchal system. There are religious organizations that do good work in the world, and many people seem to need someone to tell them it's ok, that some guy in the sky cares about them and is looking out for them. The idea that God blesses America—church marquees saying Jesus Saves—that's an odd vision of reality. First there were gods, and now there is God. Like, we couldn't even come up with a name? It's like calling your dog, Dog.
Q: “Journey to the End of Season One of American Horror Story” is one of my favorites in the book. You include a quote from Celine: “You can be a virgin in horror the same as in sex,” and the poem shifts between the onscreen horror of the show and the many ways we lose our horror virginity in real life. It’s a fantastic poem. Tell us about its genesis.
Kim Addonizio: Oh, thank you! I really debated putting that one in the book. It's so out there. But so is that show! It was almost enough just to describe the details, they were so ridiculous and gruesome. And something about the violence, as I was living in downtown Oakland where there was so much shit happening on the street every day, made me feel particularly susceptible to it. That piece also reflects some of what I feel about our current American situation. All the ugliness is on display, from Twitter trolling to false narratives that deny mass shootings to the enthusiastic public embrace of anti-democratic "ideals." I'm also thinking of that episode in "Black Mirror," in which a politician slips "Kill all others" into an interview, like a subliminal message; later it's written on a billboard. Kill All Others. That's where we seem to be.
Q: If someone could only read one of the poems in Exit Opera, which would you want it to be? Why?
Kim Addonizio: Ah, you're asking me to choose between my children! I'm not sure I can, even as a thought experiment. It depends on the "someone," the reader. I think, for every reader I'm lucky to have, some poems will speak to them and others won't. We go through so many changes in life, and specific poems seem to find us when we need them. That's been my experience, anyway. I don't love all the poems or poets I loved as a younger writer, but I needed every one of them at the time. If one of my poems lights up someone else, I'm grateful.
Q: Some poets struggle with live readings, others shine. What are the challenges in taking poems from the page to a live audience? Do you enjoy live readings?
Kim Addonizio: I like doing readings, if I can connect with an audience. That can be a source of anxiety—that I won't connect. Lately I've been doing word/music performances with my boyfriend, who's a professional guitarist. It's been a good creative collaboration, amplifying the language with music. I'm committed first to the page, though. In many ways, poetry's such a private experience, and I love that. It's both beautiful and weird, putting out a book and never knowing who reads it or how it affects them. Live readings are a chance to do something a bit different, to be in the moment of the poem with a group of people.
Q: Have you had any memorable “bad” readings? What’s the worst thing you remember from one of your appearances?
Kim Addonizio: Hah! Every poet has a horror story or two. Years ago, I made a major blunder in front of a large audience, which I wrote about in an essay. I'm not sure what's worse, that kind of public humiliation or the humiliation of a tiny audience in a giant auditorium. Or a bookstore reading where no audience shows up except for an ex-boyfriend and one other person, so the bookstore clerk sits down to make it three, and except for that one other person you'd fuck off to the nearest bar with the ex, but there you are.
Q: You teach poetry to private groups, and you’ve also written (or co-written with Dorianne Laux) two books on craft. What do beginning poets need most from their teachers? What do they struggle with the most?
Kim Addonizio: I feel my main job as a teacher is to meet students where they are, and to ask them to take their work seriously as work. Poetry is a beautiful and demanding art form, and I try to help them access the craft, to understand it's the key to unlocking so many doors. Mostly they don't know what the doors are yet, or they're trying to go through the wrong one. "Make me a published poet, tell me how to get into these journals." They want to publish for validation, which is fine—but you have to earn it. You have to love the craft. And to be able to handle the gap between the poem you imagine and the one you can actually write. And to tolerate failure, and rejection, and self-doubt—so many challenges! The other thing—vision, sensibility, magic, whatever you want to call it—that can't really be taught. But maybe the right class or workshop can be good soil to encourage its growth.
Q: You’ve published novels, story collections, and Bukowski in a Sundress, a book of essays. What draws you to write in these other forms? Are you working on anything now?
Kim Addonizio: I'm proud of the two novels I published—with Simon and Schuster, yet—but I have zero desire to write another one. I'm also proud of a book of stories I wrote, The Palace of Illusions. I wish more people had read that book. Right now I'm working on a new essay collection. I loved writing Bukowski, exploring personal essays and seeing what that form can do.
Q: What have you been reading lately? Are there any books you’d like to recommend to our readers?
Kim Addonizio: I literally just had to open my Kindle to see what I've been reading; it's so scattered and random. I'm listening to I Used to Live Here Once, Miranda Seymour's book on Jean Rhys. I'm a big admirer of Rhys and I've been writing about her as part of an essay. I'm reading Miranda July's novel All Fours—she's insightful and often hilarious. How to Write a Sentence by Stanley Fish. Things You May Find Hidden in My Ear, by a Palestinian poet, Mosab Abu Toha. I often find myself dipping into Denis Johnson's The Throne of the Third Heaven of the Nations' Millennium General Assembly. His poems have amazing ways of pulling you into some space of longing and heartbreak and compassion. Here's an example:
I know I’m suburban, I’ve got a shitty whiskey in my hand,
I work a job like eating a knife …
Everyone’s sperm all over my life,
the sad waiting. Here’s to the simple and endless
desperate person lifting this glass.
Q: Finally, this is your ninth book of poetry. What keeps you writing poems?
Kim Addonizio: As I mentioned earlier, as far as poetry goes, I'm not writing much these days. But I always want to write poems. Being inside the making of a poem is one of the purest and happiest places I can be. Poetry is my heart.
More About Kim Addonizio
Kim Addonizio has authored nine poetry collections, two novels, two story collections, and two books on writing poetry: The Poet’s Companion (with Dorianne Laux) and Ordinary Genius. Her most recent collection is Exit Opera (W.W. Norton, September 2024). She has received fellowships from the NEA and Guggenheim Foundation, and Pushcart Prizes in both poetry and the essay. Tell Me was a National Book Award Finalist in poetry. Recent books include Now We're Getting Somewhere: Poems (W.W. Norton) and a memoir, Bukowski in a Sundress: Confessions from a Writing Life (Penguin). She is online at https://www.kimaddonizio.com.
