Poems published so far in 2024
a round-up of my language (written and visual) released into the wild this year
Video Poem and Recorded Performances
This summer, TriQuarterly published my first ever (I think? Life is feeling long right now… and memory for what I’ve made is getting loose) video poem titled “Predictive Text.”
Sarah Minor, TriQuarterly’s Film Editor wrote about the video poem:
In “Predictive Text,” KP Kaszubowski composes a poem live, guided by the titular prompt of an iMessage screen. The poem’s lines bear the cadence of a poetic constraint in a channel newly resonant with selfies and vacation landscapes: “this is to say I’m surprised that this person I’ve made / in order to get some love / isn’t getting much love at all / is it too late to reroute?”
“Predictive Text” is thinking about the group text as public confessional, the near-climax of the overshare, and the infinity of a meager text box. On the surface, Kaszubowski’s project is a form of AI-engaged writing offering us a voyeuristic glimpse into the relationship between private user and personal screen. As we watch the human poem engage with the anticipatory breath of the machine, we feel our human eye falling a step behind, too slow to track each exchange: “love / heaven / green / earth / heaven…”
Pulled along the incline of predictive AI, this poem reminds us that video art forms have always worked at the edge of art and technology, redefining “maker,” borrowing digital medias designed to be functional and wielding them instead for art’s purposes.
In May, I was invited by Woodland Pattern to read alongside Dara Barrois/Dixon, whose work has opened up my nasal passageways. To say the least, it was an incredibly humbling experience read with her, and to meet Dara and dine with her, her guest, and co-Executive Directors Jenny Gropp and Laura Solomon beforehand.
And, also at Woodland Pattern, on October 23, StarWound composed original music to be performed with 5 poets live. I read the following poem “Artist Statement, 2020” which was written in response to StarWound’s prompt where we were asked to consider our interior experiences at the onset of the pandemic. Our poems were written during a workshop that was facilitated by Brenda Cárdenas.
Artist Statement, 2020
I said I’d show up once
my whole face could move
The doctor said she wouldn’t have noticed
if she wasn’t told
so I performed into my phone
facing the street from inside my bedroom
At midnight what sounded like a dinosaur outside our window
were teenagers racing cars into craters
There, the moment that made me want to leave
to find a new home where no one incinerated
Then, never a tidier kitchen never a snakebite
so easily made into a poem
If one of us shouted from a different floor, the other
would feel it from below
All the good rest I got during the day
and very little at night
And still I can’t fully smile
one eye never fully closed
Podcast Interview and Online Poems
This summer, I was interviewed by fellow writer and mystic April Dawn Patterson on her podcast The Sandbox, after we had an astrology session together. You can find the episode here: 92. Punk Rockin' Astrology & Life with KP Kaszubowski of Lyric Threads Lab
In the show notes, April wrote:
Capricorn-rising KP Kaszubowski is a poet, filmmaker, and astrologer. In this episode she talks about how writing connected her to her body and how she discovered astrology as a powerful meaning-making practice she feels called to use with solemnity and ethical consideration. KP shares a lyrical essay she wrote and gives us all a sneak peak into her current work. We discuss what a punk-rock approach to astrology means and the grit to be found in gratitude.
KP’s Word: Pleasure
KP’s Teachers:
Breath (deep, belly breathing) - yin yoga teacher Maa Haripriya of World Peace Yoga School - IG: kundal_i_ni_
”Let it be easy” - artist Jenna Knapp (hypnosis, EFT, neuro-linguistic programming) - IG: itsjennaknapp
Ross Gay and his poem “Catalog of Unabashed Gratitude”
Inside this podcast interview, I read from a poem published by Stone of Madness called “[I saw that I was a kiwi bird]” this October:
Three of my self-favorite poems were published with Biscuit Hill this August: “Ripe for disruption” (a poem the came from a text discussion with
), “Snowstorm and power outage,” and “With dances of the skull we animate the dead.”What’s next?
Thank you for reading along with this round-up of poems published, performed, or presented in the world this year. It has felt like a welcome yet strange up-tick in presenting what I’ve been working on in the past few years.
Noticeably, there are less film-related news — undoubtedly because there was a focus inward through the first years of the pandemic. But I am starting to work on scripts again, now that I have 3 poetry/prose manuscripts ready to go out, all of different ilks, all fashioned in the same seasons together, like triplets.
It’s time for the creative pendulum to swing back to the screen or the stage. Maybe? Who knows which creative sprite will pull my attention the most next!
Putting this out there…
I will be looking for beta readers for my novel written in stanzagraphs this winter, starting in Mid-December.
If you’d like to be a reader for me, please reach out! We can discuss an exchange of energy (a birth chart reading? Editing on your own writing? Creative consultation for a multi-pronged project you have in the works?).
Reply to this e-mail or Substack direct message me!