Kevin Chesser lives above a candy shop in Thomas, West Virginia, which is a historical coal mining and railroad town with a population of less than six-hundred people. I met Kevin almost a year ago when he came to Huntington to read from his poetry collection, Relief of My Symptoms, at a reading series I host called Ham’s House. Kevin read his poems, played the banjo, and made people laugh. I’ve thought of him often since the reading, and so have others who were in the crowd—they’ve asked me about him. He has that effect on people. He makes them feel special.
We met at his apartment as the cool, end-of-summer evening swept over Tucker County. He had just gotten off a shift at the Invisible Art Gallery and looked just as sprightly as he had when I’d first met him. His apartment was dimly lit and decorated with nostalgic relics: framed drawings of Garfield and Charlie Brown, childhood photos stuck to the fridge. On his bookshelf were multiple VHS copies of Twister. His partner, Carina, shook my hand and exuded a similar nirvana as Kevin. He offered me a cup of tea, which I took, and then we sat down in his living room while, on the TV, the Orioles played the Tigers.
Dalton Monk: Did you grow up playing baseball?
Kevin Chesser: I played baseball until I was about thirteen. I was not… I’m not very athletic. When the kids started hitting their growth spurts, I didn’t hit a growth spurt. That’s when I went to my dad and was like, “I’m not doing this anymore. These kids are seven feet tall and two-hundred-and-fifty-pounds.”
DM: Did you grow up in Thomas?
KC: No, I grew up in southern Maryland. I lived in Elkins [WV] for like fifteen years before I moved up here. I went to school there and stayed.
DM: How old were you when you moved to Elkins?
KC: Eighteen. I moved up here [Thomas] in 2020. Kind of at the height of COVID.
DM: The last time I saw you, you said you see the same people every day. Who are those people?
KC: Well, I see my coworkers. I see my downstairs neighbor, which she’s only here half the time. I see my next-door neighbor out walking her dog. She’s usually out walking her dog at the same time I’m usually out walking. I like to walk after dinner every night because I have trouble sleeping…I see a little bit of everybody. Honestly, I run into a lot of people in the alley back there [points in the area behind main street]. Back there is where a lot of people live in these buildings, and the alley is where they actually hang. It’s actually really nice on a walk. I can come across four or five different pockets of people out chilling. Because there’s that big retaining wall over there it kind of makes it feel like you’re in a place that’s separate from town, like it’s kind of secreted away. So, that’s nice. That’s nice right there.
DM: In what ways does this town influence your work?
KC: I first started coming up here to do readings and shows probably around 2016 and started spending more time here in 2018 or 2019. There’s a really dense concentration of different kinds of artists who live here because this place has become a magnet for all kinds, like transplants and tourists. People up here have always just been really encouraging of stuff that I do. I think that if you’re a local and you live here and you know everybody—if you approach somebody who has one of these spaces here and say, “I have an idea for this,” they will likely give some time and energy to help you with it. If they recognize your face, if they know you, they’re like, yeah. It’s easy to make shit happen. That environment is really good for me. Once you get your boots on the ground here, you get to know people pretty quick. It’s not super competitive. There’s a lot of people doing creative stuff, and there’s a lot of support. If you’re a transplant here, you’re probably looking to be somewhere that doesn’t have too many people but feels funky and creative… I find it inspiring for my work. It’s beautiful. I like that there’s a lot of open space where I can walk and not see anybody. There are trails out in Davis that I love to go on—camp 70 trails. There’s a whole lot of boggy sods type terrain. Different times of year there’s amazing colors and it’s all muddy and weird and there’s trails all through it. I love being out in that stuff. It’s good for my brain.
DM: As I was reading Relief of My Symptoms I felt that there had to be an influence from David Berman or James Tate. Then I came across “Self-Portrait at 35”, which is dedicated to David Berman. How did you first come upon Berman? Was it through his music or poetry?
KC: His music first. Poetry shortly after. I was a big Pavement fan in high school so I sort of knew about Silver Jews. I was visiting my aunt and uncle in Chapel Hill and I went to some awesome record store in Chapel Hill and I got The Natural Bridge by Silver Jews. I put it on and was like, “I don’t even know why I exactly like this so much but I do.” I got really into them and got his [Berman’s] book a couple years after that. I still love his book. I read Actual Air once a year. Very few people—musicians or artists of any kind that I listened to when I was seventeen—have stood the test of time. He’s something to aspire to. The references, the way that he phrases things. That kind of flat humor that runs through everything. I just love it, and I think it’s only gotten better with age. That poster [pointing to a Silver Jews poster on the wall behind him] is from the liner notes of The Natural Bridge. My girlfriend my freshman year of college gave this to me and I’ve had it in every place that I’ve lived since I was eighteen.
DM: What’s your favorite song on the album?
KC: The first one [“How to Rent a Room”]. I love that the band is really not trying too hard. The production is pretty middling. He’s not an amazing singer. He writes great hooks and melodies. He writes amazing lyrics. It just all kind of like—it just has some magic.
DM: Do you read or have you read James Tate?
KC: Yeah, I like him a lot. I feel like his older stuff, like the Worshipful Company of Fletchers, that stuff is a little more interesting to me. As he got older, the stuff was always good, but he had really locked into one thing that he was doing. He and Russell Edson were the two guys who kind of taught me how to write a prose poem.
DM: Relief of My Symptoms has several poems in which the narrator details a rich interior life—maybe even isolated at times—but there are also poems in which it’s clear the narrator is around others, maybe too often. Tony Paranoia, or Tony P., shows up a few times. Is Tony P. an amalgamation of several people? Is he made up? Is there an actual Tony P.? Tell us about Tony P.
KC: Tony P. has like a seed of maybe a couple people who I grew up with. He’s not really based on anything super specific. I came up with his name in the moment. In that poem that’s called “No Mercy” his name kind of popped up out of just working on that. That poem was written well before I had any idea to make that book. So he was already in that poem and as I was putting together the book I realized I should just bring that guy’s name back in so it would be a character. He’s really just there as one of the people that the speaker is speaking to. Most of what I write is first-person, so I will admit to having a lot of one-dimensional creatures orbiting around me.
DM: As a reader, I got excited every time Tony P. showed up. He felt like a friend.
KC: Yeah. He really doesn’t do very much. He’s in the hospital and he’s in the baseball game and he’s talking about wanting to play the pipes. I realized that that’s what I wanted to do when I was reading Bud Smith. I was reading Double Bird, that collection of stories. They’re not supposed to be super strongly linked, in terms of characters or narrative. But, for example, in multiple stories there’s references to a store called Food Universe. It’s such a great touch, just a really simple way to add some continuity. In order for me to do that with my book, it was just a cosmetic change. I already had that stuff written. That was something that clicked for me as I was going along. I was like, “Well, I’ve got a couple characters that are mentioned by name and since the family stuff comes up over and over again, I’ll give them all the same name and it gives it a little bit of continuity.” But it’s a cosmetic change. I just repeat people’s names a couple times and I love the effect. It’s like a trick.
DM: When did you know you had a cohesive collection? Was that the original goal?
KC: I just put my balls in my hands and prayed. I didn’t have an editor on it. I had Carina and my friend Séamus Spencer give me some basic notes. I think when I figured out when I was going to have recurring characters and names, I was like, “This can work.” Before, I was putting the manuscript together because I knew I was definitely going to put it out with my friend’s press. My friend Jen Iskow is the one who runs Ghost Palace Press. She’s a designer and visual artist mostly… Oh, oh my god [talking about the homerun just hit on TV]. And he caught it in his hat! This bullpen guy, when guys hit homeruns into the bullpen, he’s caught about four of them in his hat. This is a momentum shift that we’re seeing happening on TV right now. They have not been scoring like this in two months… Sorry. I don’t even remember what I was talking about… I knew I was going to do the book. I went through about maybe three years worth of whatever I had and I found the stuff that seemed like it was somewhere in the same ballpark, as far as tone and the shape. It ended up being more prose than anything. I knew I had a cohesive thing because I said, “This is about as cohesive as it’s going to get.” Because we had already planned the party to release it and it’s got to go to press at some point. I need some kind of external pressure to finish something like that. I’m kind of bad about letting go of it.
DM: In addition to writing poetry, you make music under the name Wizard Clipp. What got you into playing music?
KC: I started playing guitar when I was ten. We had my mom’s old Epiphone laying around. I really loved music at a young age, so I naturally wanted to play around with the guitar. I kind of half-played it all through high school. The guitar is something I’ve never really been good at. Playing five-string banjo is my main thing. I started playing the banjo when I was twenty, living in Elkins. There are a lot of old-time musicians there. I found a really good banjo player to take lessons with. The banjo just made a little more sense for me. Something about the tuning and picking was something my brain could grab a hold of.
DM: Everyone loved hearing you play at Ham’s House. We need more Kevin Chessers.
KC: A lot of the people I know who are musicians first—almost all of them do a little bit of writing. Maybe not so much the other way around.
DM: I’ve seen on Instagram that you’re doing Tarot decks.
KC: Not yet. I’ve got a Tarot installation up.
DM: And you’re possibly coming out with a Halloween chapbook?
KC: We’ll see. I’ve been sort of restless on social media lately just trying to get somebody to gas me up. I’m going to try to put together a reading up here in early November, and my friend Cole Fiscus—who I’m going to do the reading with—he’s going to try to get a chapbook out. And I thought, “Man, I wonder if I should try to slap together a little chapbook.” I was fucking around with those little haunted house haikus and I thought, “I bet I could write a bunch of these.” I did a haiku chapbook one time.
DM: Is it important that you always have a project to work on?
KC: It’s helpful if I have an idea of a finished product that I’m working towards, but I don’t always get it done. That’s not always a bad thing. That’s the thing that’s cool about living in this town. It has made me a little more focused and constructive because of getting encouragement from people here. Knowing people who have got spaces where you can hang some art on the wall or put on a show… And they’re approachable people who will be like, “Yeah, sure.” It has made it so that I’ve gotten more constructive with finishing stuff. But generally speaking, I feel I’ve always been a little aimless with it. I like doing it and just kind of scratching away at it all the time because it comprises ninety percent of my interests. If I don’t have a project I’m working toward, it doesn’t necessarily keep me from working on stuff. Sometimes I like it better if I don’t have a project.
DM: What are you reading right now?
KC: I brought these in from my bedroom. [Gestures to a stack of books on the coffee table: a Richard Brautigan anthology which includes Revenge of the Lawn, The Abortion, and So the Wind Won’t Blow It All Away; Small Moods by Shane Kowalski; and Nature, Man and Woman by Alan W. Watts.] I really love all of this [talking about the Richard Brautigan anthology]. I’m almost done with it. I liked it better than the three-pack that has Trout Fishing in America… My friend turned me onto Shane Kowalski. It’s really good. [Picks up Alan Watts book.] I love Taoism and Chinese philosophy so I’m reading this Alan Watts book.
DM: What’s next for you?
KC: I think we’re going to try to get tarot decks printed. I drew all the cards on 5×7 pieces of mat board. There’s seventy-eight of them. It’s this big wall installation. Earlier this year, I was playing a lot of music and I was feeling like I was getting enough material together to do another record. But I don’t have the money for it. So, right now, I’ve been writing a lot, just trying to build up the biggest heap of poems that I can get. Just trying to generate so I can do another book and maybe send it out to presses with a little wider distribution. I don’t know if that’s worth it or not, but if I came up with a manuscript that I was excited about—especially because I’ve got a better idea of what I want to do in the future—it would be cool to get it further out into the world. But historically I’m kind of bad at that. I love finishing projects and putting a bow on them and polishing them and getting them how I want them. Once they’re out in the world, though, my interest in them really drops off precipitously. I think a lot of people can relate to that. Or maybe not. Poets can relate to that. Maybe musicians can’t. Musicians have to maintain some enthusiasm for their material because performing is so essential to being a musician, whereas being a writer, performing is more of a minor part. You could much more easily write a book and disavow it, but if you’re a musician, you can’t get up on stage and be like, “This stuff sucks.” I’m hoping to have another draft of a manuscript next year. And then I want to see if I can screw up my courage enough to send it out to a bunch of places. They’re all just shots in the dark… which is frustrating. But that’s also what I like about it. I think I like the fact that it’s such a fucking headache. It’s a headache when I’m sitting down to try and focus and then it’s a headache to send out the submissions. And then it’s a headache to try and go back and revise what I’ve written.
DM: That should be the title of this interview: Kevin Chesser has a Headache.
KC: I actually suffer from chronic headaches… [Now, looking at the game on TV] Corbin Burnes is about to strike you out. Yeah, and that guy’s shaking his head. He just roasted you, you fucking idiot, and you just stood there looking at it.
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