On Your Mind with Kip Knott

On Your Mind with Kip Knott

About Kip Knott:

I am a 7th generation Appalachian by way of West Virginia, Kentucky, and Ohio. Throughout my childhood and adolescence, I spent whole summers living with my grandparents in the coal mining ghost town of Hemlock, Ohio. The time I spent living with them was the best education I ever received. Each night at the dinner table was a lesson in storytelling. My career as a writer began when, as a boy of six, I wrote a story for my father after he had cut off part of his big toe with the lawn mower. I didn't write another story until my sophomore year at Ohio State, when I enrolled in a short story writing course. After graduating with a degree in English, I naturally accepted a job as a Laboratory Manager for the Department of Zoology at Ohio State, where I worked for five years before heading off to the University of Alaska Fairbanks to pursue my M.F.A. in Creative Writing. After completing my degree, I spent the next several years as an itinerant teacher, with my travels taking me to England, Alaska, Iowa, and Oklahoma. In 2001, I found my way back to Ohio, where I have been living and teaching ever since.

Mark Danowsky: What has been on your mind lately?

Kip Knott: Both of my parents, who are in their late 80s, have been dealing with some serious medical issues lately. Just a couple of weeks ago I spent the entire night in the ER with my mother. When I came home that morning, my son asked me, “Can you believe that in 20 years you’ll be in your eighties?” My son is not just asking if I can “believe” that I am so close to 80 that I can imagine it, he is also asking if I can accept the fact that I will be 80. Can I believe it? Yes. Can I accept it? That’s the question that’s been on my mind. So far, I haven’t come up with an answer.

MD: What has been sparking curiosity lately?

KK: I’ve been particularly curious about an old painting that I recently found at a flea market. In addition to being a teacher, I am also a part-time art dealer, so I spend much of my free time perusing flea markets, antique stores, and thrift stores looking for artwork. A couple of weeks ago I found a very accomplished Impressionist landscape oil painting that is signed with a nearly illegible signature. It is clear that the artist who painted the painting was very talented, and that the painting comes from the late 19^th/early 20^th century and is the American Impressionist style of that era. I’ve spent an inordinate amount of time trying to decipher the signature and research the painting, but I’ve come up empty so far.

MD: You hear stories like the following every once in a while. A person buys a painting or artwork at a thrift shop or flea market and it turns out to be worth a small fortune. I always feel like this is getting people’s hopes up as nowadays folks tend to know the price of what they have. Do you think people should be a little optimistic about the possibility of having a big find?

KK:  Absolutely. It was a thrift shop find that began my career as a part-time art dealer. In 2014, I purchased a painting of a pheasant flying out of a winter cornfield from a thrift shop in Delaware, Ohio, for $40. Three months later, I sold the painting at auction for $7,200. In the years since then, I have found dozens of paintings in flea markets, thrift shops, and rural antique shops that I have purchased for anywhere from $10-$100 dollars each that have gone on to sell for anywhere from $500-$2,000 dollars each. Oftentimes, paintings are misattributed to other artists or are so dirty that the seller cannot identify the artist at all, and therefore believe the painting is more-or-less worthless. Researching a painting is absolutely essential. Even if the artist is not known as a painter, they may be known for something else, which can make the painting more valuable. For instance, I once found a painting by the first woman to ever become a Marine in America, for which I paid $12. Through my research, I discovered that after she retired, she had become an amateur painter who never sold any of her work. I wrote up her story in my description of the painting for my eBay store, and the painting was purchased by a retired Marine officer for $500. Oftentimes, learning and telling the story of the artist is what ultimately makes the difference in whether or not a painting sells and for how much.

MD: Any new habits or activities?

KK: I have recently begun to expand my scope to include studio art pottery.

MD: What’s been pushing you to write? Specific nudges that have been helping you with motivation?

KK: I typically write to either sort through complex emotions that I’m feeling about certain events going on in my life, or I write to escape the complex emotions that I’m feeling about certain events going on in my life. It depends on the day.

MD: Are there new ideas or areas of interest you’ve been focused on recently?

KK: I’ve been listening to a lot of music that I heard while growing up in the Appalachian region of Ohio and trying to hear it with fresh ears. So much of that music (blue grass, honky-tonk, classic Nashville country music) carries a lot of nostalgic weight, so I’m trying to hear the songs for themselves rather than just hearing them as the soundtrack to specific events in my life.  

MD: Personal experiences that are taking up your time or have shifted your views?

KK: My parents’ health issues have made me begin to think about my own aging and what my wife—who is 13 years younger—and my son might have to deal with in the coming years.

MD: Desire to be working on a new project?

KK: I just finished a new chapbook of 15 poems, all of which were written in two consecutive days, for a contest that required poets to write a completely new poetry chapbook of at least 15 pages from September 1 to September 4. It was incredibly challenging, but I really enjoyed the intense focus it required and the chance to explore one theme in a complete series of poems. I’m thinking of challenging myself to repeat this process at least once a year, so I’ve begun making a list of possible themes that I might explore the next time I attempt to write a series of poems in a very short period of time.

MD: What feels exciting in recent times?

KK: For me personally, it’s watching my son trying to break into voice acting. He’s very talented and has already been cast in some online fan games. Every day I get to hear him either creating audition recordings or recording his lines for the characters he’s been cast as. He’s building up quite an extensive audio portfolio, so I’m excited to see where his efforts will lead him.

MD: What gives you hope for the future?

KK: My son. He is one of the smartest, most talented, and supremely empathetic people I know. And the group of people he is friends with all share his intellect, talent, and empathy, which makes me very hopeful for the future.

MD: What are your top worries/concerns recently?

KK: The American political and cultural landscape. Having lived through the assassinations of the 1960s, Vietnam, Watergate, Reagan, and George W., I didn’t think things could get any worse. Sadly, it looks like I was wrong.

MD: Who have you been reading? Would you recommend this for general audiences?

KK: I spend a lot of time reading poetry. Lately, it’s been a lot of Jane Hirshfield, lucille clifton, Yannis Ritsos, and William Stafford. As far recommendations for a general audience, I really enjoy Andy Weir’s novels Hail Mary and The Martian. And The Hunger Games trilogy. I definitely like character-driven stories.

MD: How has art been incorporated into your day to day recently?

KK: I write A LOT of ekphrastic poetry, so every day I peruse art museums online or watch documentaries about artists and/or art movements to get the juices flowing. Recently, I’ve been into paintings by Jacob Lawrence.

MD: What are your feelings about social media?

KK: During the pandemic, I made a lot of very real and very important connections with writers and artists over social media. And it’s helped me to spread the word about my books. Social media has definitely afforded some writers and artists a chance to get the kind of exposure that they may never have gotten without it. I definitely understand the benefits of social media in those terms. But I’ve also seen a lot of needless negativity on social media that has brought just as many people down (some deservedly so) as it has elevated (some not deserving of elevation). I guess I see it as a kind of necessary evil.

MD: What are you most worried about in our society?

KK: Politics, politics, politics. The political situation in our country is tearing apart every other aspect of American culture. But most of all, it’s destroying our humanity and our ability to empathize with people.

MD: Where are you finding sources of inspiration?

KK: My son and his incredibly diverse group of friends. They are using the political situation in our country as motivation for being more empathetic and appreciative of the diversity of American culture.

MD: How are you feeling about the literary community?

KK: For the most part, I’ve been very fortunate to have found a place within a very supportive community of writers. I’ve been encouraged, inspired, and challenged by this community to write new things that I may never have attempted before. But I’ve also been witness to the pettiness of the literary community, the desire of some in that community to tear down others in order to elevate themselves. Again, just as it is these days with American culture in general, there seems to be a lack of empathy on the part of some in the literary community. Many, many things in life are more important than a Pushcart nomination. 

MD: What are your current thoughts on the poetry landscape / “po biz”?

KK: See my answer to the previous question. I will add that there seems to be a new trend of writing titles for poems that are longer than the poem itself. Sometimes there’s so much information in the title that I don’t feel the need to read the poem.

MD: Do you have a favorite podcast recently?

KK: I LOVE The Memory Palace and the Micro podcast.

MD: New favorite band/musical artist(s)?

KK: She’s not new, but I was recently introduced to the music of Emahoy Tsegué-Maryam Guèbrou, an Ethiopian composer and nun who died back in March at the age of 99. Her piano music is unbelievable. Beautiful, idiosyncratic, moving, and haunting.

MD: New favorite tv show or movies?

KK: The Bear and This Fool are both terrific for very different reasons. Oppenheimer is the best movie I’ve seen this year. Pig is probably the best movie I’ve seen in the last five years.

MD: Best way to unwind recently?

KK: Binge-watching Mad Men is my go-to choice for unwinding.

MD: Where are you finding beauty?

KK: Right in my backyard. I have at least a dozen different wildflowers blooming right now, with ironweed towering over them all. The backyard is abuzz with all kinds of pollinators, as well as hummingbirds and goldfinches.

MD: What’s something on the horizon that you’re looking forward to?

KK: I’ve got a new chapbook of poems, Little Hiroshimas, that’s coming out next summer, so I’m looking forward to that. It’s a book of all ekphrastic poems that I’m really proud of.

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Kip Knott's most recently full-length book of poetry, The Other Side of Who I Am, is available from Kelsay Books. A new poetry chapbook, Little Hiroshimas, is forthcoming from Finishing Line Press in 2024. You can follow him on IG at @kip.knott and read more of his work at http://www.kipknott.com.