OPEN SPACE

……………………………………………………………"That bottle keeps its blink on its side red from horizon." Clark Coolidge………………………………..

Photo by Dodie Bellamy

Kevin Killian, US poet, novelist, critic and playwright, has written a book of poetry, Argento Series (2001), two novels, Shy (1989) and Arctic Summer (1997), a book of memoirs, Bedrooms Have Windows (1989), and a book of stories, Little Men (1996) that won the PEN Oakland award for fiction. A second collection I Cry Like a Baby was published by Painted Leaf Books in 2001. With Lew Ellingham, Killian has written often on the life and work of the American poet Jack Spicer [1925-65] and co-edited Spicer’s posthumous books The Train of Thought and The Tower of Babel. And Killian and Peter Gizzi have just released a new edition of Spicer’s collected poetry for Wesleyan University Press. Killian’s work has been widely anthologized and has appeared in, among others, Best American Poetry 1988 (ed. John Ashbery), and Discontents (ed. Dennis Cooper). His newest books are a book of Selected Amazon Reviews and Action Kylie (poetry, 2008).

He has written on the Bay Area art scene for Artforum, Artweek, Framework, etc., etc. and, though not a natural “sub,” has labored mightily in video and theater work for Abigail Child, Cecilia Dougherty, Kota Ezawa, Carla Harryman, Sue Marcoux, Raymond Pettibon, Camille Roy, Leslie Scalapino, Sarah Schulman, Leslie Singer, Michael Turner, Laurie Weeks et al. For the San Francisco Poets Theater Killian has written thirty plays, including Stone Marmalade (1996, with Leslie Scalapino), The American Objectivists (2001, with Brian Kim Stefans), and Often (also 2001, with Barbara Guest).

He is one of the original members of the notorious San Francisco based “New Narrative” group, and helped to organize the original “Out Write” conferences of queer writing here in San Francisco, as well as the 1996 “Queer Beats” conference.

With Dodie Bellamy he has edited 155 issues of the SF-based writing/art zine they call “Mirage #4/Period[ical].” For their work with artists and writers they have been honored with tributes in exhibitions in San Francisco (San Francisco Public Library, summer 2004) and in New York (White Columns, spring 2006).