Ask The Author: Neal Kitterlin

These Two Poems written by Neal Kitterlin appeared in the May Issue. Below Neal discusses sneaking in writing, the skin of prose poems, and the best songs to listen to while cutting one’s ear off.

1. How do you sneak in writing while at work?

Very carefully. Seriously, though, most of the time I am working in a word processing document, and its pretty easy to toggle over to a new tab and jot things down.

2. Why did you choose to use the skin of prose to shape these poems?

I have a very intuitive relationship with line breaks. Sometimes I put them in as I write, sometimes I write in big text chunks and add line breaks later, and sometimes those chunks tell me that no line breaks are needed at all. These poems fit into the last category.

3. What moment of your life would you like to flash forward to?

The moment the Cubs win the World Series. Or the moment when I win the inaugural season of the surprise breakout hit television show, “America’s Got Poems”.

4. What song would you put on when you are about to cut one’s ear off?

“My Heart Will Go On,” by Celine Dion. That way, the loss of the ear might be a welcome development.

5. How much of yourself is on YouTube? How much more or less do you want on there?

To my knowledge, I am not on YouTube at all, and I’m perfectly fine with that. I have little interest in being onscreen unless I’m being directed by Kevin Smith or Quentin Tarantino.

6. Are we back in the middle with you?

If the middle is filled with ’90s ephemera and weird sounds, then yeah, you’re right there.