Welcoming Words

Funny, romantic, and wise, FSU Professor James Kimbrell publishes his fourth collection of poems

To get to know poet and Professor James Kimbrell, it may be best to think of an analogy: Picture him as a multicolored quilt made up of educational patches, literary squares, pieces of sadness, and of great joy, love of music and art, and all stitched together by Kimbrell’s strong thread of curiosity and a talent for making his readers feel “warm” beneath his words and wit. 

James Kimbrell, since 2000 a professor in FSU’s Department of English, has just published his fourth volume of poetry, The Law of Truly Large Numbers. Steeped, he says, in the territory of the Georgia mountains, where his father was born, and New Orleans, birthplace of his mother, Kimbrell says that “there is life and loss here—but always something to joke about.” 

Like a template of middle America in the years after the Korean War, Kimbrell notes the influences of his parents: his father’s radiation poisoning and alcoholism following the military; his mother’s artistic sensibilities and work ethic; and the loss of a brother. And into this very middle-class setting—Kimbrell’s own fascination with ballet dancing, poetry, and, like a boy of his times, rock and roll.

“I ‘published’ my first poem at age 7, in the second grade,” he says. He also started his own literary magazine at Millsaps College, where he traded a trajectory toward law school for literature and later earned a master of arts degree from the University of Southern Mississippi, followed by a master of fine arts degree from the University of Virginia and a PhD from the University of Missouri. Kimbrell decided that he needed to see a little more of the world and spent two years teaching in South Korea before coming to Tallahassee’s Florida State University.

“And now every morning, I climb up to a dinky part of my home’s carport shed, filled with tools and my collection of old guitars, and I write. I couldn’t be happier. It’s actually the blank page that inspires me,” he says. “It is the best muse. I never know what I’m going to write. I simply work from the bottom up, waiting to see where the poem will take me.” 

And from verses about stealing a warm sandwich and stuffing it in his pants to being starstruck when Kimbrell served ballet dancer Mikhail Baryshnikov at a diner where he once worked, to dozens of other tender and touching and laugh-out-loud works, Kimbrell continues to observe the world, looking for just the right words to emerge from another blank page. 

An excerpt from
The Law of Truly Large Numbers:

Making a Turkey Sandwich
for Mikhail Baryshnikov

“It doesn’t matter how high you lift your
leg. The technique is about transparency,
simplicity and making an earnest attempt.” 

—M.B., Baryshnikov at Work, 1978

Because he finally appeared during my shift

and I could see him beyond my prep window

and the cold display and the cash register

sitting at the four-top with Jessica Lange

and their daughter, Alexsandra, I made an earnest

attempt to slice the sunflower wheat bread 

with disinterested grace, to keep the crust

unbroken before layering the smoked meat

with lettuce, mayo, avocado, and three strips 

of applewood bacon, then cutting 

the whole into halves, perfectly tooth-picked

gourmet doppelgangers of abundance and, 

one hoped, restraint. Fingers hooked in my

apron collar, I watched as this table of three 

who represented a ridiculously large share

of Earth’s talent and beauty were served 

their sandwiches, or as I liked to think of them, 

their edible sculptures. I did not walk out 

to the forbidden gleaming customer area

to introduce myself, a fan, an aspiring poet,

a dishwasher and slicer of serious bread.

I was not the Baryshnikov of poetry. 

I was not even the Baryshnikov of sandwiches. 

And a family deserves to eat in peace, and I 

deserved to watch them, or I didn’t, but watched 

anyway, though not ostentatiously. It wasn’t

easy to slice a fresh round of focaccia 

when I wanted to set forth in my hair-net  

and scream “Mikhail! Mikhail! I’m so happy 

you got free from nasty old Russia where a 5’5” male

could never dance the lead!” In my salty halo, 

in my cloud of bread steam, I recalled

childhood visions of an airborne jeté

over pool halls and pine-tops, the water tower 

a train set figurine in the air beneath me. 

Of course, like most boys in Mississippi,

I was herded decidedly away from ballet 

toward football, hunting. I wonder, how many 

poets are would-be dancers? Name one

good poem that doesn’t long for escape. 

After they finished, napkins on plates, 

Baryshnikov’s crumbs were everyday crumbs.

Nor was the silverware infected with 

greatness. Such are the mysteries of genius

and mastication. The oven bell rang, as did 

the order bell and the dish bell, all the bells 

that said the meal is ready, and the cake. Still,

with damp cloth and bucket, I stepped out

and took my time clearing their table.

—James Kimbrell