Episode Thirty-nine
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In this episode, I spoke with KB about their zine “a new relationship to pain,” their relationship to poetry, the pandemic, working as a poet and educator, and more.
KB is from Stop Six, Fort Worth, Texas. They are a Black queer nonbinary poet, educator, student affairs professional, and lover of most plants/people. They want to be your friend as well as your reminder to think in abundance. They have words published in Cincinnati Review, Puerto Del Sol, Palette Poetry, and other equally pretty places. Their chapbook How To Identify Yourself with a Wound (Kallisto Gaia Press, 2022) won the 2020 Saguaro Poetry Prize and was written with support from workshops with Lambda Literary, In Surreal Life, The Watering Hole, The Hurston/Wright Foundation, The Speakeasy Project, and Winter Tangerine. They are currently a 2021 PEN America Emerging Writers fellow and an African American Leadership Institute - Austin fellow.
When not on stage or in the page, they serve as Program Coordinator for the Gender and Sexuality Center at the University of Texas at Austin, Founding Executive Director of Interfaces, Co-Founder/President of Embrace Austin, and educator in various settings. Follow them on Twitter or Instagram at @earthtokb and access their exclusive teaching, writing, and other content at patreon.com/earthtokb. They live in Austin, TX where they’re writing books & trying their best.
KB’s Zine “a new relationship to pain”
Poets, books, etc. mentioned in this episode:
Jericho Brown’s The Tradition
Taylor Byas’s poetry
George Abraham’s "ars poetica in which every pronoun is a Free Palestine” (second poem on this page)
Justin Phillip Reed’s "Leaves of Grass"
Claudia Delfina Cardona’s “What Remains"
Khalypso’s “You Really Seem to Think I’ll Miss You”
The Sound of Waves Breaking is “DesertTexasT01” by Riabad
Editor and Social Media Manager: Mitchel Davidovitz