X.J. Kennedy

X.J.Kennedy

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We had thought of simply using the biography from the reading of a few years ago but X. J. Kennedy can’t be pinned down. Two new books came out in the fall: In a Prominent Bar in Secaucus: New and Selected Poems 1955-2007 (Johns Hopkins U Press) and Peeping Tom’s Cabin: Comic Verse 1928-2008 (BOA Editions). The Secaucus book was cited as a 2008 Notable Book by the American Library Association (one of the two poetry titles on their list of 25 notables) and has been named first runner-up for Poetry Book of the Year (after W H Auden) by Contemporary Poetry Review. Select company for a man not interested in resting on his laurels but on weaving new wreaths.

X.J. Kennedy was born as Joe Kennedy in Dover, N.J. August 21, 1929 shortly before the crash of the stock market (not his doing). Irked by the burden of having Joseph Kennedy as his name he stuck on an X and it, in turn, stuck with him ever since.

He grew up in Dover, went to Seton Hall (B.Sc ‘50) and Columbia (M.A. “51), spent six years in the navy as an enlisted journalist aboard destroyers, studied at the Sorbonne ’55-’56, spent six years trying and failing to complete his PhD. at Michigan but meeting and winning Dorothy. He taught in many colleges before becoming a freelance writer in 1978 and he does tilt at anything which attracts his attention. The Kennedys live in Lexington, Mass in a house half century old and half new. They have five grown children and six grandchildren.

X.J. Kennedy has many awards, among the laurels awarded him are the Lamont Award of the Academy of American Poets (Nude Descending a Staircase in 1961), the Los Angeles Book Award for Poetry (Cross Ties: Selected Poems 1985), he has been awarded Guggenheim and National Arts Council Fellowships, and has received honorary degrees from Lawrence and Adelphi Universities.

His accomplishments span the decades and, thankfully, seem to have no end.

More information at: www.xjanddorothymkennedy.com

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What We Might Be, What We Are

(a poem for kids)

If you were a scoop of vanilla

And I were the cone where you sat

If you were a slowly pitched baseball

And I were the swing of the bat

If you were a shiny new fishhook

And I were a bucket of worms

If we were a pin and pincushion

We might be on intimate terms

If you were a plate of spaghetti

And I were your piping hot sauce

We’d not even need to write letters

To put our affection across

But you’re just a piece of red ribbon

In the beard of a Balinese goat

And I’m a New Jersey Mosquito

I guess we’ll stay slightly remote

Little Elegy

For a child who skipped rope

Here lies resting, out of breath

Out of turns, Elizabeth

Whose quicksilver toes not quite

Cleared the whirring edge of night

Earth whose circles round us skim

Till they catch the lightest limb,

Shelter now Elizabeth

And for her sake trip up Death