Ken Jones<\/strong><\/a>: I began as a poet and attended UT to pursue an English\/creative writing degree. During the time when our band Peace Corps first started, I was in grad school earning my MA in the same subject. Many of the lyrics in the book emerged from what was probably my juvenilia. I\u2019d written all my life\u2014songs, poems, some plays produced in junior high and high school. But as every creative person knows, process is unique to each artist. I can say that some lyrics make explicit literary allusions, whereas others were inspired by personal experiences, real-life events, or my philosophical views on a variety of subjects. Each lyric has its own story\u2014I ought to reread the book as it is now and write an addendum, like Eliot did to \u201cThe Waste Land.\u201d <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n
After being involved in the Texas literary scene for so long, and hanging in Los Angeles and Florida, do you find that Texas has its own style of literature, its own approach to the arts? <\/span><\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n
Yes. Texas is like its own country, and I am a proud native Texan. The entire genre of Texana takes our history and environment as muse. Recently I was reading with a friend who didn\u2019t know about Texana, and when someone hopped on stage to read about dance hall culture, I leaned over to her and said, \u201cThat<\/em> is Texana.\u201d Of course, everyone thinks of J. Frank Dobie and the great Wild West-inflected short stories of Larry McMurtry and his fantastic novels grounded in our special state. When I lived in Houston, I was fortunate to count Larry Thomas, a former Texas poet laureate, as a personal friend. We often read together and if I were to direct anyone to a quintessentially Texas poet, I would recommend him\u2014Where Skulls Speak Wind<\/em> and many other examples of his fine work.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n
I did live In LA for ten years and published in many little magazines there. Obviously, it\u2019s a much more urban sensibility. Everyone there wants to be Bukowski, though as a New Formalist, I wasn\u2019t really a huge fan. I like his short stories better than his poetry. I only lived a few months in Miami and NYC, so I don\u2019t feel I know those scenes well, though I did feature at Cornelia Street Bar in Greenwich Village and also snagged the artist drink discount all summer after reading at the Bowery Street Poetry Club. And I read to a large crowd on the street at Espanola Way from the balcony of the Edge Theatre in Miami Beach. Jim Tommaney was an excellent playwright and the uncle of my girlfriend at the time, Susie, whom I am lucky enough have as my graphic designer on most of my books and remain friends with to this day. <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n
What is your opinion of government sponsoring the arts and patronage in general?<\/span><\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n
I\u2019m skeptical of patronage. It\u2019s a long-honored literary tradition from Roman to Royal to modern times. I personally lean libertarian politically, so free speech to me is the paramount value of our society. My fear is government patronage flattens the curve on free expression, unconsciously forcing a herd immunity to truly radical or controversial ideas. Yet the alternative most working writers have is to teach, and academia obviously enforces conformity to climb the tenure ladder or even obtain the professor gig in the first place. To quote Billie Holliday, \u201cGod bless the child that\u2019s got its own.\u201d <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n <\/span><\/span><\/p>\nWhat prompted you to collect these pieces of memorabilia into one book? Was there ever an intention to do so some day?<\/span><\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n
No. We had released many of the songs on cassettes locally and on an indie album that got national and international distribution and reviews. When I moved to LA, I put all these memorabilia into a Rubbermaid container to store at my mom\u2019s house. Many years later I was featuring at the Austin History Center for Peggy Lynch, and during intermission I walked the halls of the building. They had an exhibition called \u201cThe Poster Art of 80s Austin.\u201d The walls were covered with framed flyers with names of so many bands I knew and gigged with\u2014I was shocked. They had to hunt me down to finish the reading, as I was lost in memories. At that point, I realized that maybe what we did back then had passed into some form of history. So I spent time assembling the material. I found enough for two<\/em> books. Maybe we can do a sequel someday. <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n
What plans do you have to promote the book? How will promoting this book be different from promoting a collection of poetry?<\/span><\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n
With the current pandemic, all live events are obviously on hold. Generally when I publish a new book, I schedule a series of readings in Houston, Austin, and elsewhere to promote it. I hope when our lives stabilize into some normalcy, I will do readings, even some music gigs. Right before the lockdown, I videotaped and recorded some of the songs in solo piano versions with my current music producer, Spyder Angelo at Sound Street Studios in H-town. And people can go to SoundCloud, type in \u201cPoetKen,\u201d and find a few songs in their original versions. Mitch Ginsburg, one of the guitarists on the cover of the book, even joked about \u201cgetting the band back together,\u201d like the Blues Brothers, but realistically, I\u2019m mostly a page poet now and, when I make music nowadays, it is either solo piano or produced by Spyder. But I\u2019m old enough to know that no one can predict The Way Life Goes<\/em>.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
An interview with Texas poet Ken Jones<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[810,813,830,886,952],"class_list":["post-2051","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-lone-star-listens","tag-lone-star-literary-life","tag-lonestarliterarycom","tag-poetry","tag-texaspublisher"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonestar.a1professionals.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2051","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonestar.a1professionals.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonestar.a1professionals.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonestar.a1professionals.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonestar.a1professionals.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2051"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lonestar.a1professionals.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2051\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonestar.a1professionals.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2051"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonestar.a1professionals.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2051"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonestar.a1professionals.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2051"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}