I will not kick my friends

Some of the best poetry written is less about a particular subject and more of a conversation. But a conversation with whom? In Kathleen Winter’s I Will Not Kick My Friends, the conversation is between the poet and other artists (Rimbaud, Henry James, and Brenda Hillman, among others), the poet’s persona and the reader, and various personas talking among themselves. What we “overhear” as we read is a varied and vast discussion at once profound and banal yet at no point boring. In fact, Winter’s poetry hums with a somewhat dark yet clever humor at times self-deprecating, silly, and biting not just in its sarcasm but its satire. What allows these poems to succeed (aside from their innovative form and pristine crafting) is that they never come off as flippant or bitter; these aren’t poems trying to make a scene. Perhaps the most interesting aspect to these quick-moving lines is the sense these poems aren’t Adamic in their creation but Eve-ic, if you will, creating their world through conversation. Readers of academic and literary poetry will find Winter’s collection a satisfying challenge, while casual readers will encounter a lively mind pushing them past mere pleasure.