You call yourself a “woman-poet entrepreneur.” What do you mean by that?

I run the West Chester University Poetry Center and the West Chester University Poetry Conference, I edit Mezzo Cammin,, and I direct Story Line Press, I teach. I also do my own writing—poetry, articles, and reviews. I wear a lot of literary hats.

At the same time, when I speak about entrepreneurship, I mean following through on an idea: creating something where there was nothing. Like most entrepreneurs, I believe in the big dream. When I launched The Mezzo Cammin Women Poets Timeline Project in 2010, I wanted to do it in Washington because of the symbolic resonance of the location. Then I created the event from scratch: the fund raising, the evening, the project itself. That evening at the National Museum of Women in the Arts remains one of the best of my life.

Why are you having such a hard time with this self-interview?

I guess because there’s too much freedom. It’s easy to answer someone else’s questions, but not so easy to answer my own, or even to articulate what they are.

Well, what if you just think of questions that you think would be fun to answer?

Isn’t that cheating?

Hi, Evan, I think I follow you on Twitter.

Yes, I follow you, too. You’re hilarious. I love Twitter, but it’s also part of my job. I gather stories constantly for a daily news aggregate centered on creative writing and the publishing world, so I’m always reading, and Twitter is an amazing resource. I’m paid to use Twitter, but I’ve given myself over to it—not sure I can stop. It’s the first thing I reach for in the morning. I smoked for twenty years—I recognize the impulse.

Tell us a little bit about your new book of poetry, THE MORROW PLOTS. What’s the significance of the title, and what was your inspiration for writing the book?

When I lived in Upstate New York—way up on the Canadian border—during the awful winter, I became obsessed with The Morrow Plots, an experimental cornfield on the University of Illinois-Urbana-Champaign campus. The local and campus agronomists conduct important crop experiments there, and then disseminate the findings among the U.S.’s farming industry. So, it’s an important square of land, and hallowed ground in downstate Illinois. You do not trespass on the Morrow Plots. The legal and social consequences for such things are dire. The Plots are regionally revered. Illinoisans lend the Plots this crazy holiness. I was born in Illinois, and I think I was oddly homesick for the Midwest all the way up there near Canada among the defunct Go-Kart tracks and Shining-esque hedge maze that my wife and I lived behind (the area was a bedroom community for Manhattanite boaters in the summer time, and so had all of these kitschy tourist traps that would go skeletal come winter). Yes: we lived behind MazeLand.

This is your second interview at The Nervous Breakdown. Does it feel awkward to be interviewing yourself again?

A bit, but I talk to myself quite a bit already.

Oh, really?

Yes, but I try to normalize it by telling people I’m just talking to my dog. Sometimes I read poetry to her, too.

Does your dog like poetry?

God, I hope so. Otherwise I should be expecting a visit from PETA. No matter how bad the poetry is, though, peanut butter always seems to cheer her up afterwards. I should make a note of that for my next reading: Bring large jar peanut butter.

You’ve been awfully quiet today. What’s up?

I’ve been thinking of my attraction to bardo spaces. The in-between places. I suppose I’ve been dancing there since my early 20s when I left organized religion and began formally pursuing the visual and literary arts. An early exhibit of oils and monotypes called Between featured quasi-mythological, autobiographical figures knee-deep to chest-high in water, both on land and at sea at once. Looking back, it isn’t a surprise that ten years later I would begin seriously studying Tibetan Buddhism where this concept of the between figures prominently. It’s a natural fit for me. Any philosophy that makes a practice out of living beyond duality and with the concept of both/and feels like home.

First question, gotta ask: What’s up with the hat?

A lot of people ask me that question. And it’s a valid one, as I’m wearing it in most every photo. Though, there are certain spoken word videos where I don’t wear it, or a bandana: “All The Times” and “Human Condition” are two videos that come to mind. I also never wear it in the shower, to bed, or to work. Haven’t worn it to a funeral either. Or when getting a driver’s license photo.

Today, I have the incredible honor of self  interviewing a most interesting guest here at The Nervous Breakdown….Karen Kelsay.

Thank you! I’m so pleased to be here.

Karen, where did you grow up and did your childhood experiences shape your poetry in any way?

When I was six, my family moved to the city of Orange, which is very close to Anaheim, California.  As a child I spent a lot of time at Disneyland and often found myself daydreaming about hiding out at Tom Sawyer’s Island, then swimming across the water to spend the night in the Swiss Family Robinson tree house. My head was filled with Disney movies, I knew all the words to every song…I really wanted to be Hayley Mills (maybe that’s why I married an Englishman).

What’s with the mustache?

Robinson Alone is a book of poems, but it is also a novel in which I derive a character from the life of the mid-century poet and mysterious disappearee Weldon Kees (1914-1955?), as well as from his alter ego Robinson. Although Kees’ Robinson poems are not persona poems, nor, for the most part, are mine—the poems speak about Robinson and not for Robinson—the experience of writing them has still been one of imagining myself into somebody else’s body and mindset. Plus, I have always been intrinsically fascinated with mustaches and Kees had a stylish one.

What’s with the political poetry? Are you trying to piss people off?

I actually try not to offend people with my political pieces. For me poetry is about communication and I don’t want to shut people’s ears/minds to what I am trying to get across. Also, I don’t think one can write successful political poetry by screaming at people, so I try to be subtle, which is sometimes hard for me in real life. It sounds cliche, but I am interested in dialogue and hope to bring that about with my work. And, if people hate my stuff, I want to know and I especially want to know why.

Do you think there’s a difference in personal and political art?

For some people, yes. For me, no. Besides poetry, I also practice Butoh which is an avant-garde Japanese modern dance form which was conceived as a style of dance protest to the Westernization of Japan after WWII. I have a 25-year dance performance background and dropped all other dance forms when I found Butoh. Since Butoh is not about making pretty forms in space or having specific technical skills it is pretty much opposite of all other dance forms which makes it automatically political.

What recurs in your poetry?

Animals, the prefix “un”, kitchens, cupboards, fields, foundations, dogs, women.

Do you listen to music when you write?

Sometimes. Andrew Bird, opera, Neko Case, Band of Horses.

Do you imagine a reader when you write poetry? What are they like?

They are like me, with better powers of concentration.

“Welcome to the Museum of Cattle” is the title of your latest poetry collection. Have you ever been to such a museum?
No. I’ve visited the National Cowboy Museum in Oklahoma City and driven past the Devil’s Rope Museum of barbed wire in Texas. There’s a very welcoming town called Cowes on the Isle of Wight (off the south coast of England).

As a child I loved this amazing stuffed animal museum. It was called Potter’s Museum, and it was full of Victorian costumed bunnies, squirrels, kittens, and finches in various tableaux such as school rooms, parties, weddings, graveyards, and a thieves den of rats. Walter Potter was a self-taught taxidermist and I guess I am a self-taught poet. Moving to America meant everything became bigger and so my museum upsized the creatures.

Most important question first: What is your favorite Pixar film?

Monsters, Inc. Absolutely. Depending on the day, I find myself in Sully, Mike, Boo, even Randall. We all wonder what lurks in the closet and under the bed and are shocked when we finally understand that the monsters are us. The Jungian in me loves the layering of doors in the film, too.

You say you haven’t been sleeping much. What do you do in the middle of the night when everyone else is snoring? 

That all depends on what’s going on around me and whether or not I am really awake when I get out of bed. I once got in my car and drove down Silver Ridge Avenue. I woke up at 5am, in the parking lot of the Astro Cafe right off the 5 freeway, in my nightgown, shivering! A huge rig pulled in next to me.  I will never forget the vibration of those particular eighteen wheels. That… woke me all the way up.

More recently I woke up and painted my bathroom blue. So much of what we do in life has no end, even when it’s over, the ripples continue to pop up and surprise us. Sometimes, I just need a task that has a clear sense of completion.  When the wall is done, the wall is done.  The next morning, I realized that I had painted water base over oil. My daughter looked in the mirror and said, “Mom, I feel like I’m combing my hair in the sky!”  Then I didn’t care so much about the paint snafu.

On a more average sleepless night, I light a candle, pour a glass of water, and write.

Your day job is as a data analyst. How do you reconcile the analytical mindset with the poetic mindset?

I haven’t found them to be in conflict. I often approach poems inspirationally to begin with, but the editing and revision process is very analytical, and the rigor and clarity of thought that I’ve developed in my work help me there. At the same time, I’ve found that writing poetry has improved my general communication skills a lot, and that helps me in my job.

Many people aren’t aware of the nuances of different ways of saying things, or don’t have large enough vocabularies to be able to make effective choices. As a poet, these are indispensable skills. But actually, these skills are useful in any kind of job where you have to communicate with other people. No matter how dry and factual the information you’re putting across, there is emotional content, and it’s very easy to change that or shade it by using different words.