Keith Lyons converses with Erik Kennedy
What does it mean to write poetry in an age of climate crisis, internet overload, and late-stage capitalism? Few writers tackle those questions with as much intelligence, humour, and urgency as Erik Kennedy. The acclaimed contemporary poet talks about finding his voice, life in another hemisphere, the pleasures of performance, and why writing remains central to how he makes sense of the world.
For readers who may be discovering your work for the first time, could you tell us a little about yourself and the kinds of writing you write?
I’m Erik Kennedy, a poet, critic, editor, and performer in
Ōtautahi Christchurch in Aotearoa New Zealand. I’m originally from New Jersey, but everything good I’ve ever written was produced here. My three books are There’s No Place Like the Internet in Springtime (2018), Another Beautiful Day Indoors (2022), and Sick Power Trip (2025), all with Te Herenga Waka University Press. My first and third books were shortlisted for best book of poetry in New Zealand’s national book awards, the Ockhams. I also co-edited an anthology of climate change poetry from Aotearoa and the Pacific called No Other Place to Stand (Auckland University Press, 2022).
How do you describe your poetry?
In a recent fellowship application, I wrote that with my style I am ‘intense, wry, and willing to seem unhinged if it makes the writing real’. That seems fair. The adjectives ‘political’ and ‘funny’ are often thrown around in discussions of my poems. I think I have taken a more solemn turn with my recent work, especially in Sick Power Trip and in the manuscript I’m working on now. Subjects I return to over and over include climate collapse, the internet, labour, illness, warfare, addiction, and dysfunctional late capitalism. I try to use every tool in the poet’s toolbox: free verse, rhyme, collage, prose and hybrid forms, personas, etc. As a poet you get to shapeshift; I try not to forget that.
I also enjoy writing criticism, and I think I’m good at it, but it’s not something I’m driven to do unless I’m asked by an editor. (Hit me up, editors.)
When did writing first become important to you, and do you remember the moment you thought, ‘I’d like to do this for a living’?
I have never thought that I can write for a living! I do various kinds of work, including as an editor in book publishing, but I don’t expect the kind of writing I do to buy me truffles and Audis.
When did I first realise that I wanted writing to be a central part of my life? I was about thirteen when I started to write really seriously, autodidact-ing myself into a position where I started to have a style and ambitions. I was the classic teen poet filling notebooks with poems that, mercifully, remain in what Thomas Gray would call ‘dark, unfathomed caves’. I have never really looked back. Writing is a vital part of how I live. Of how I process the world and the things that happen in it. I have always produced new writing, except in periods of personal turmoil, and in those circumstances I think the not-writing made things even worse.
What kind of work have you done in this space, and how has it shaped your writing?
In an earlier period of my life I was doing a PhD in English at Princeton, and while I didn’t complete it (by writing what surely would have been a tragically uninspired dissertation), the many years I spent at the coalface of literature and history at universities were not wasted. There is a part of me that still thinks that The Poet Who Knows Lots of Stuff is the ideal artist.
Being a copyeditor is an underrated literature-adjacent job. I know loads of writers who teach creative writing (it’s not for me), and that obviously makes you think constantly about how texts work, but there is something about the technical, competence-driven, problem-solving nature of copyediting that I have always found appealing. I like coming up with answers! Every book you work on upskills you in one way or another. That’s so valuable. I’d like to point out that AI is not coming for copyeditors any time soon. The sheer amount of random facts, hunches, preferences, and human judgements involved in copyediting a book definitely makes it a craft for flesh-and-blood knowledge workers.
Also, I have edited poetry for litmags for years. There is simply no better way of seeing what writers are actually doing than by reading hundreds or thousands of real-life examples of contemporary writing. Editing offers you examples of writing to emulate and to react against. It’s also a crucial part of a writer’s moral education; people are entrusting you with important parts of themselves, and as an editor you have a responsibility to treat their work with care and respect.
What readers/listeners do you most like writing for?
I feel really fortunate to have a thriving literary scene on my doorstep, quite a lot of it grounded in performance. I have gained so much by trying to make my work resonate with live audiences, who of course only get to experience the text once, via my voice and expressions. (Also, I was a theatre kid, and I just really like performing.) Page versus stage is a false dichotomy, but page plus stage is a great way of thinking about making work that draws people in. Publication is always my goal with my poems, but I also want to entertain, to commune with real people I can see and chat with. So in some ways the reader I have in my head when I write is a punter at a reading series. These people have been wonderful barometers for me over the years.
You grew up in the US and now live in New Zealand. How has this influenced your outlook?
I can imagine my answer to a question like this being shown to me by agents in some dismal room at Newark Airport. Let’s just say that I am glad that I am where I am. Also, I have published work that probably makes the points I wish to make better than I can make them here.
Where does your writing usually begin: with a character, a situation, a question, or something else entirely?
A line. I am a compulsive notes app user. I raid my poem ideas document all the time.
What does your writing routine look like, and what conditions help you do your best work?
‘Routine’, lol. As is the case with many poets, I would say that there are certain aspects of executive function that I don’t excel at. So my process can look a little chaotic. I try to set myself up for success with my note-making habits. And I work on things when the moment feels right. I am opportunistic, a jackal who doesn’t miss a trick if a corpse is nearby. I only occasionally sit down with the intent to write. (It does work sometimes, though, which feels like finding $50 on the ground.) Walking is a great imaginative stimulant for me; we could call that an important part of my routine. I’m like a moustached twenty-first-century Wordsworth.
Every writer faces difficult days. What helps you keep writing when inspiration is absent or a manuscript feels stuck?
If I haven’t produced anything vaguely satisfactory for a fortnight or so I start to feel so inadequate and despondent that not writing doesn’t even feel like an option. I suppose if, despite my best efforts, I ever get full-on writer’s block, I will dissolve into a dejected slime. Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that.
What aspect of the writing craft took you the longest to master, and what did that journey teach you?
The dark art of ordering a poetry manuscript—of making disparate elements into a coherent whole—is something I will always want to get better at. It is hard. My most recent book, Sick Power Trip, feels of-a-piece in a way that neither of my first two books did, because I set out to make it that way and because I allowed my preoccupations to come through. Maybe what I’ve learned is that artists need preoccupations. I am thinking about artistic unity earlier in the process now. Is this good? Maybe. Do I feel I’ve cracked the case? No.
What role does reading play in your life as a writer, and are there particular authors or books you return to for inspiration?
I don’t like the name-your-influences game because 1) my influences change all the time and 2) I am terrified of offending someone by not mentioning them.
Anyway, it all starts with reading. Sure, living is useful too, but I’ve always found that an encounter with the right text at the right time is transformative, alarming (in a good way). It’s like a nineteenth-century galvanist is jolting me with electricity.
I do a lot of reading for professional purposes (keeping up with what’s coming out), so I sometimes must remind myself to let my fancy wander and read . . . whatever the hell I want. Another thing I need to remind myself to do is to read things on my TBR pile! You bought these books, you idiot, maybe you should look at them. A constant problem.
What has surprised you most about the experience of being a published author?
I’m always amazed that people take the time to write to me out of the blue. I can only imagine what it’s like if you’re, you know, actually a big deal writer.
How do you navigate self-doubt, rejection, or the inevitable setbacks that come with a creative career?
I am a world-class user of defence mechanisms.
What is the most valuable piece of writing advice you have ever received?
I find that the example set by other writers I admire, especially peers, is more motivating to me than maxims. It’s more valuable to me to observe the ups and downs of other people’s careers than to hear, like, ‘the brain is a muscle—exercise it’.
What advice would you give to aspiring writers?
Make sure you like writing, not just having written. I think there are some truly terrible temptations available to writers who want to get to the end product too quickly. (Yes, I am talking about generative AI.) But if you really do like writing, then probably nothing will stop you. I believe in you. We are so lucky to work in an artform that requires very few material inputs. I don’t need a tuba or big canvases or a theatre to do what I do. Life presents obstacles—of course it does—but in theory literature can be such a democratic artform.
If you could go back and have a conversation with the writer you were before your first book was published, what would you tell them?
You were a ‘real writer’ then, even if you barely felt like one. Having books doesn’t make you a writer. Writing does.
You can read two poems from Sick Power Trip by clicking here.
Keith Lyons (keithlyons.net) is an award-winning writer and creative writing mentor originally from New Zealand who has spent a quarter of his existence living and working in Asia including southwest China, Myanmar and Bali. His Venn diagram of happiness features the aroma of freshly-roasted coffee, the negative ions of the natural world including moving water, and connecting with others in meaningful ways. A Contributing Editor on Borderless Journal’sEditorial Board, his work has appeared in Borderless since its early days, and his writing featured in the anthology Monalisa No Longer Smiles.
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Click here to access Wild Winds: The Borderless Anthology of Poems
Click here to access the Borderless anthology, Monalisa No Longer Smiles