Ask the Author with K.Lipschutz
A short interview with Jen Knox
Jen Knox (JK): Thanks for taking the time to speak with Unleash. Tell us a little about your journey as a creative person.
K.Lipschutz (K): The road I’ve traveled has been crooked, with potholes, washed-out sections, and all manner of detours. Smooth sailing has alternated with accidents galore, too many of them self-inflicted. Companions along the way have been key to both my self-destructive bent and my survival—and my few hard-won triumphs. Not to be unnecessarily vague! I’ve been writing since I was 17, and will be 68 in early 2024. I am an autodidact. Never was a big fan of the classroom. Self-education and lack of credentials have charted my pilgrim’s progress as a writer.
JK: What is the best piece of advice you've received (as a creative person or about life in general)?
K: “Take the long view.”
JK: Agreed. Can you share one (or a few) of your favorite lines, either from your work or someone else's work?
K: I will resist the temptation to quote myself. Instead, here’s a line (actually three lines but one thought) by Chilean poet Nicanor Parra that is also on my website: “The poet’s duty is this / To improve on the blank page / I doubt if it’s possible.” Parra’s words are bracing and humility-inspiring; they exist on the other end of the seesaw from the outsize confidence necessary to put your own words out there, where, in essence, they will be in competition (like it or not) with everything that has ever been written since the dawn of civilization.
JK: Do you have a writing persona? If so, share with us how it came about.
K: I’m pretty sure I have several. Not anything like the number racked up by Fernando Pessoa, the King of the Heteronym, but more than two. How they come about I don’t know and don’t want to. Sometimes the first poem of a line establishes a narrator’s voice that comes from I don’t know where. (For instance, I’ve never been a TV weatherman, but I have in a poem.) To excavate for reasons would inhibit me, and I need all the freedom I can muster when playing with a poem. And that’s what writing is for me when it flows and time goes AWOL: play.
JK: How did you find your first publication?
K: My publishing history has definitely been checkered. My first book came through an anarchist group in San Francisco that put out a national magazine. I was a regular contributor and went to meetings. But I didn’t say much. The consensus decision-making took forever on small points, the difference between which eluded me.. Anyway, they had formed a nonprofit and needed to show some “activity” to maintain their legal status. (These were very well-organized anarchists!) So they decided to form a press and publish three books. Mine was one of them.
JK: What are you working on next?
K: Writing songs with Chuck Prophet for his upcoming release. He goes into the studio in January.
And, I’m closing in on a first draft of a play co-authored with Jon Cone.
K.Lipschutz (formerly klipschutz) is the author of Mr. Congeniality (2021) and seven other collections of poetry, starting with The Erection of Scaffolding for the Re-Painting of Heaven by the Lowest Bidder (1985). He has also co-written over a hundred songs released by international recording artist Chuck Prophet. His Long Engagement: New & Selected Poems (1985–2023), assembled in conjunction with long-time supporter Brenda Hillman, is looking for a home. Current work in Cordite (Australia), the Taos Journal of Poetry (Nov. 2023), and Literary Cocktail (fall 2023. He lives in downtown San Francisco with Colette Jappy and three cats.