An Interview with Ann Killough
Sean Keck
Ann Killough, a self-assured yet polite Boston poet with a slight southern accent, once visited a medium. When the subject of her poetry came up, the medium asked her what it meant to be a poet: Did she give readings? Reflecting on this incident now, Killough says, “There’s a way that poetry, when it’s really good, brings in something of the spirit.”
Killough’s Beloved Idea, just released by Alice James Books, is powerful evidence that the poet practices what she preaches. Written in the first six months of the latest Iraq war, the book mainly traces what its author describes as a “national thread of being attracted to madness.” Killough, whose early interest in poetry developed from hearing the King James Version of the Bible read during Episcopalian church services, adopts and adapts a rich fabric of spiritual metaphors (including the stigmata, the Holy Ghost, and the horsemen of the apocalypse, to name only a few) to inform her exploration of this thread. This is by no means the limit of her range, however, as she also fuels poetic departures on such seemingly mundane items as underpants and silverware.
Killough channels inspiration from various sources while writing. Certainly the people she knows are important to her: “I think that because I’m involved with so many people, I do think about them.” However, she also places a strong emphasis on the importance of reading: “It’s so important to read. I think reading should be a larger portion of the creative time. There are certain people you read and then you just feel like writing.” Among those whom Killough lists as personal inspirations are Yeats, Eliot, Whitman, and Faulkner. And still another variety of inspiration comes into play, one combining elements of the other two. “I do consider that I might be writing for someone that’s read Moby Dick,” she says.
But Killough’s commitment to bring “spirit” to poetry also manifests itself beyond her own work. Describing the dynamics of a poetry reading in terms that could just as easily apply to a séance, she says, “People go, and they’re hoping for something that will change them, or amaze them, and sometimes it happens.” She adds that such meaningful encounters are not guaranteed; they must first be prepared for: “You need to create a space where people feel that’s going to happen and they’re not going to be judged.” As a coordinator of two different poetry reading series, Killough is deeply invested in shaping the type of positive creative space she describes.
With Killough’s Kinereth Gensler Award came an additional responsibility for others’ poetry. As a new member of the Alice James Board, she is now in the rather unique position of reading submissions for the press that published her. While she describes the volume of entries submitted to the book contests as “daunting,” Killough is nonetheless conscientious, considering each one with sincere respect: “When you have been on the other side, you know how much work has gone into each manuscript.”
It is doubtless her perceptivity toward the “spirit” of poetry that has allowed Killough to bring the good news of it to so many through so many different means, something we can all be thankful for.