My dad was a carpenter, and he loved to build houses.  Sometimes we would ride around in the Grand Marquis while he showed us all the homes he’s built.  I grew up handing him tools and dusting off sawdust and learning from him how things are made.  By college, I wanted to be an engineer, so I left home to study at Ohio State.

After college, I took a gap year and worked projection at a second run theater. It was a great job for a kid that didn’t want to grow up—always smelling like popcorn and meeting new people. It helped me realize I have stories to tell.  I made short films and wrote bad prose about all the things kids write about.  I even worked hard on a novel I didn’t know I’d never finish. Somewhere in there, I met my wife and started a family, and life took us to Cleveland then back to Cincinnati.

It was about a decade after my last English course before I found poetry again. I was navigating the new landscape of fatherhood. My journals sat neglected and unused.  Between micro-naps and changing diapers, I crafted little anecdotes.  I never thought of myself as an artist, but when I read one to my dad he called it a nice poem.  I said it wasn’t a poem and that I couldn’t write poetry.  He shrugged and said it was nice anyway.  Then one day I found my four year old piecing bits of trash together on the table.  She told me she was making art.  I said, “that’s not art, that’s garbage.” And she replied, “you can’t tell me what’s not art.”  She was right.  After that I started writing to get published.

Before long, I’d written something I was proud of, so I submitted to the Cincinnati Review Awards.  It didn’t win anything, but I did get a copy of the contest issue and learned that nobody writes sonnets anymore, so I started reading more poetry and writing like the poets I liked. 

That fall I carpet bombed every literary journal I could find with my best work. Most went to the abyss, and I got comfortable with rejection. But the editors of the Sow’s Ear responded, made suggestions for my poem Beer, and that was my first time in print. I liked the original, but I knew the edit made it better.  Since then, I focus on writing my best—and the poems follow.

When I think about my journey, I’m reminded of when I asked my dad why he loved building houses.  He told me he wanted to create something that would be there for a long time after he’s gone.  I remember his face when he told me, glossy and still, picturing me years from now visiting all he’s built, considering the makings of my own life. It was how he looked when I read him some of my published poetry—the same look I have when I’m asked why I write.

Thanks for reading—

K.