an interview with Kimmy Beach (excerpt)

Kimmy Beach: Thank you for the good wishes! Yes, the new book is currently called in Cars in my head, but I don’t usually change my titles. They are one of the very few aspects of my writing that seem to spring from me fully formed, as from the head of Zeus.
The central moment of this book is the death of a young man I knew in the early ’80s at the hands of a drunk driver. I’d been thinking for a long time about a way into this story, and a couple of years back, I was at St. Peter’s Abbey [in Muenster, Saskatchewan] having a beer with a friend who asked me to tell him about the hottest car I had ever owned. “Easy,” I said, “a 1974 butterscotch Mustang Mach 1 five-speed with all-white leather interior.” He then told me about his ’71 Dodge Demon called“Chick Magnet.” I spent the next few hours writing the poem in which the boy dies. I gave him my friend’s Demon, and the book was born in my mind. Because it’s set about 1982, it’s full of mid-’70s muscle cars, British synthetic pop music, and roller skates.
That poem was the beginning work about a time and subject matter I had no idea I needed to write. And more than any other work I’ve done, this book was truly joyous to write.

CV2: Can you give a quick rundown of what a muscle car is, for those of us unfamiliar with the culture?

KB: Sure. Muscle cars are souped-up, big-tire late-’60s-to-mid-’70s cars like Demons, Challengers, Mustangs, GTOs, and Barracudas. They’re noisy, sexy, smoking-fast gas guzzlers. [And] the book got me interested in everything to do with muscle cars. I found myself going to every Show & Shine in Alberta to look at engines and take notes. Conveniently, muscle car owners really like talking about their cars. I have no trouble speaking technically about roller skates, and I found that I could draw some interesting parallels between the construction of the skates and the specs of cars. The knowledge of one helped me feel confident about gaining knowledge of the other, and because I once owned a muscle car myself, it was easy to get caught up in that world.
So, my forthcoming book is currently my favourite, but to answer your question fairly, I like each of my books for different reasons. But in terms of cohesion, consistency of narrative, solid writing, and sheer cheek, fake Paul wins hands down.

CV2: With the publication of your fourth book a certainty, you are well on your way as a published author. How did this journey begin for you, and why poetry?

KB: Poetry was not a conscious choice for me. In fact, I was so enthralled with my postcolonial studies professor that I considered specializing in feminist postcolonial literature. I was good at it, and Lord knows I would have taken a directed reading in Advanced Basket Weaving, had this professor been teaching it. But mostly it was because teachers and mentors told me over the years that they saw poetry in me, so I
decided, what the hell, and gave it a try.
The single most transformative affirmation in my early writing career was when Steven Ross Smith told me I should apply to Sage Hill, a writing program he organizes. I did, and I got in. Sage Hill is not an easy program to get into, and it solidified for me the possibility that I could become a real writer. I’ve since returned five times because I believe that writing is like any profession; you don’t walk out of How to Identify Molars 101 and declare yourself to be a dentist—you go back and take more classes. Each time I come home from Sage Hill, I have a renewed confidence in my abilities, and all kinds of new friends.
Why poetry? I suppose what you mean is why I stick with it when there are obviously other, more lucrative writing gigs out there. Sure, I’d like to make a living at it—but I’d also like to make a living playing Scrabble with my mum all day. For me, it all boils down to the joy of the writing. It is that simple. I like it. I’m good at it. It’s a really cool life. It gives me pleasure. Any chosen profession should have those
elements.

CV2: When you started writing, what did you set out to accomplish? What are your expectations of your writing now?

KB: When I started, I set out to accomplish passing English 294 with Birk Sproxton at Red Deer College in 1994. That class required that we produce a new piece each week, and a portfolio at the end of the term. Most of what I wrote for him was, of course, crap. But it had the beginnings of something worthwhile, and he saw that. I didn’t know at that time that I was going to become a writer, but began to answer “So, what do you do?” with “I’m a poet.” After that first class, I went on to take several classes with Bert Almon at the University of Alberta. He helped me put together a manuscript, my first. Even at that early stage, I recognized that poetry could do a couple of things. It could give me pleasure, first and foremost, and it could help me relive the best times of my life in poetic form, with the hope that others would find their own way into it.
Thinking about my expectations for my writing now, I must be honest and say that as long as it gives me pleasure and helps me remember events in the cool life I’ve lived, that’s most of what I need. I like being published, I like touring and giving readings, I love holding the first copy of my new book, and those CBC radio interviews? I dig them the most. But all of that would have a lot less meaning if the actual writing was not somehow joyful. I expect myself to have some fun writing, and to discover something new about what I have to say.
I am not of the Annie Dillard school of writing which would have us all locked up in windowless garden sheds banging out our work by flashlight, suffering endlessly for our art because we must “Write or Die.” That’s insane. Writing is work we choose to do. Saying we’ll die if we don’t write is like saying (with back of hand thrown dramatically over forehead)—”Not to work for the phone company is to die.
Please. Heaven forbid the profession we choose should give us pleasure!” To be sure, writing is not always fun. It’s not fun to open up a mailbox stuffed with manila envelopes with your own handwriting on them—we all know what that means. But for the most part, at least as far as my own work is concerned, I want to have fun. Of course, there are painful moments where I’m transported by a particularly harrowing
place in my work, and then have to walk in the woods and weep for an hour afterward to dispel it. I don’t sit in front of my computer eight hours a day chuckling at how witty I am. I’ve written a five-page poem for the new book in which I outline, in graphic detail, the minutiae of a boy hitting a windshield. Moments like that are part of the art. However, I’ve spent a lot of time in front of a computer, and I can look back and say that most of it was joyous.