Andrew Fadyen-Ketchum, "Fight or Flight" (Stephen F. Austin State UP, 2023)

Summary

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Podcast Summary: Interview with Andrew McFadyen-Ketchum, "Fight or Flight"

Podcast: New Books Network
Host: Holly Gattery
Episode Air Date: December 6, 2025
Guest: Andrew McFadyen-Ketchum
Book Discussed: Fight or Flight (Stephen F. Austin State UP, 2023)

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Episode Overview

In this rich, heartfelt interview, host Holly Gattery sits down with poet Andrew McFadyen-Ketchum to discuss his acclaimed poetry collection Fight or Flight. The conversation explores the deeply personal events that informed the book—most notably, McFadyen-Ketchum’s divorce and subsequent quest for healing and belonging as he wandered the wilds of America. They delve into the unique, narrative quality of his poems, discuss the intersection of personal experience and poetic voice, and reflect on trauma, humor, and the complicated process of self-repair through art. The episode brims with honesty, wit, and lessons about community, vulnerability, and the enduring power of poetry.

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Key Discussion Points and Insights

The Genesis of "Fight or Flight"

• Origin Story (04:10–07:25)
  • The book was not planned chronologically and there wasn’t a single “instigating poem”.
  • McFadyen-Ketchum describes how, after a decade-long marriage ended abruptly on the anniversary itself, he embarked on a nomadic journey across America for self-healing:

    "I went on a camping trip...stayed in my tent in [Judy Jordan’s] yard...ended up in Los Osos, California and stayed in Utah at the Canyonlands National Park for a month in January. It was insane. It's just, just beautiful, just life changing vistas. Just—the views made me feel like I could survive." (05:12–06:17)

  • The poetry arose from this state of grief and survival, a "deep grief and just being honest about it."

Poetry and the Narrative of Survival

• Autobiography and Poetic Speaker (02:51–03:22)
  • McFadyen-Ketchum rejects the traditional distinction between poet and speaker:

    "I get a little tired of the whole 'the narrator is not the poet.' ... The speaker in the poems is me at 100%." (Andrew McFadyen-Ketchum, 02:51)

• Voice and Point of View (29:01–32:07)
  • Most poems are in the third person ("he"), which allowed the poet to feel both honest and detached, echoing the sense of an out-of-body experience after trauma.
  • This dual perspective creates a sense of witnessing one's own survival:

    "There was something about that third person point of view...it allowed me to be more honest. ... Watching myself navigate the world...each poem is just an act of survival." (Andrew McFadyen-Ketchum, 29:45/31:07)

Grappling with Brokenness: "Broken White Boy Heart"

• About the Poem (21:55–25:48)

  • The poem surfaces the tension of being a white man in pain, aware that society and even activist circles often discount that experience:

    "Here I am really suffering, and people are saying to me, your suffering doesn't matter, you know, And I'm like, well, I'm about to kill myself, so I don't know what you're talking about. ... If you're not going to accept that my pain is valid just because of the color of my skin and because you think I'm a man, that's a whole nother conversation, you know." (Andrew McFadyen-Ketchum, 22:56)

  • Writing poetry becomes a way to process grief instead of turning it outwards in destructive ways:

    "If everybody spent an hour a day or half an hour a day working on a poem, the world would be a beautiful, much safer place." (Andrew McFadyen-Ketchum, quoting Ted Kooser, 26:10)

• On Guilt and Self-Care (25:48–26:10)

  • The poem candidly negotiates the guilt of healing when others' suffering—even injustice—seems more valid or urgent.

• Memorable Listener Comment:

  "Imagine if every sad, angry white boy wrote a poem instead of taking it out on the world." (Holly's husband, 25:48)

Humor, Devotion, and Hope

• Humor as Self-Survival (19:54–21:55)
  • Even in dire poems, there is self-effacing humor:

    "Your poems are really peppered with this adorable humor...it's biting at your own expense. Like, it's not outward. It's an inward kind of violence almost." (Holly Gattery, 19:54)

• Devotion and Family (13:50–17:38)
  • The book’s epigraph—from The Last of the Mohicans—is tied to the poet’s devotion to his second wife, Karen, and her children:

    "No matter what happens, I'm going to find you because you're the one that I'm supposed to be with and these children are supposed to be my children. ... She and the kids saved me." (Andrew McFadyen-Ketchum, 13:50/17:03)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Poetry's Place in Society:

  "Poetry is in the basement of the art world. It's poetry is on a, on a forever camping trip after a divorce." (Andrew McFadyen-Ketchum, 10:43)

• On Book Awards and Recognition:

  "Honestly, one of my greatest accolades...is the first poem in the book was featured on the Slowdown, when Major Jackson was the curator...His insight into the poem was like, oh my gosh, he's totally right. It's totally about that. I had no idea." (Andrew McFadyen-Ketchum, 08:14–10:14)

• On Brokenness and Empathy:

  “On a level of humanity, everybody’s broken heart should eat up our empathy.” (Holly Gattery, 21:55)

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Guest Readings

(Timestamps approximate due to edits and commercials)

"Broken White Boy Heart" ([35:05])

“Broken White Boy Heart / who knows how to write about love or its loss. And who cares, declares the voice in his head. Write about important things, anything, sweet Jesus, but yourself. Don't write about waking each morning from a dream with a gun...Trust me, the voice that inhabits him says stay silent. No one cares about your broken white boy heart.”
(Complete reading at 35:05–37:07)

"A Trio of Crows" ([40:44])

“A trio of crows followed him all that afternoon through the canyonlands of Utah's fiery furnace, a place people go to get lost because they believe they will be found. ... Is this all I desire, he wondered ... Is that all I need, he asked...”
(Complete reading at 40:44–41:58)

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Community, Outreach, and Next Projects

Poem of the Week Project (43:10–50:48)

• Poemoftheweek.com curates and promotes contemporary poetry, spotlighting living poets.
• Began as an email list in 2006; now features poems, reviews, readings, and occasional interviews.
• 20th-anniversary anthology 100 Poems by 100 Poets is forthcoming February 2026.
• Assistant editors (including Holly) have broadened perspectives and aesthetic range.

• "It's probably the most significant anthology of 21st Century North American literature that's come out yet. ... It has a communal effort to gather all these poets in one place." (Andrew McFadyen-Ketchum, 49:09/50:26)

Upcoming Work ([51:43–56:37])

• Co-authoring a memoir with Dr. Stuart Lord about surviving and healing after childhood sexual abuse—focusing on trauma, reconciliation with family, and seeking justice.
• New poetry collection-in-progress titled Unsubscribe, addressing cultural malaise and the "failures" of communities and institutions:

  "In this book, I'm addressing the need to unsubscribe from all the nonsense ... it's sort of sardonic. It's a little bit angry. It's sort of funny. I don't think it's very good ... But I'm just very slowly writing about all of that in this sort of disastrous soup that I'm praying at some point turns into something reasonable." (Andrew McFadyen-Ketchum, 54:43–56:37)

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Thematic Highlights

• Survival: The book traces not just survival after heartbreak but finding family and meaning "no matter how wrecked or wrapped its wings".
• Honesty and Contradiction: Both poet and host embrace contradiction and honesty, recognizing that poets often mythologize then return to truth in new work.
• The Role of Poetic Community: Through Poem of the Week and collaboration, McFadyen-Ketchum emphasizes the value of communal curation, support—and the hardships and repairs necessary after community failure.
• Humor and Grace: Humor becomes a salve for pain, and the show is imbued with gratitude, self-deprecation, and hopefulness.

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Additional Resources and Contact

• Poem of the Week: poemoftheweek.com
  • Instagram: @poemoftheweek | @themeanderingpoet
• Book: Fight or Flight (Stephen F. Austin State University Press)—available wherever books are sold or borrowed.
• Anthology: 20 Years of Poem of the Week: 100 Poems by 100 Poets—coming February 2026 from Madville Press.

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Closing Thoughts

This thoughtful and dynamic conversation explores the intersection of personal trauma, poetic craft, humor, and cultural critique. McFadyen-Ketchum’s openness illuminates how poetry can both bear witness to suffering and act as a vessel of resilience, humor, and hope. The dialogue navigates difficult subjects with empathy, candor, and plenty of practical wisdom for poets and readers alike.

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Transcript

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[Podcast Host]

Welcome to the New Books Network.

[Holly Gattery]

Hello everyone, and welcome to ndn. I'm your host, Holly Gattery, and I am excited to be joined today to talk about a really phenomenal book of poems, Fight or flight, by Andrew McFadden Ketchum, who I had the privilege of meeting at the AWP in Kansas City, and I've been really looking forward to talking to him about his book. Welcome to the show, Andrew.

[Andrew McFadden Ketchum]

Thanks for having me, Hollywood, and so.

[Holly Gattery]

Lovely to talk to you. So Fight or Flight artifacts, the trauma of McSpadian Ketchum's divorce and the journey he took across the wild of America. Living in a tent on the California coast, getting intentionally lost in the Utah desert, tracking wild animals in the bitter cold of Indiana winters in search of healing that led to the greatest discovery of all. His indigenous wife, Andrew. Three children he now calls his own Andrew. This story, the story, I mean, it feels like a story. It's poems. But it, it, it hit hard and it felt very narrative, despite the fact that we're not really dealing with chronological sense in this book. But I. It really felt like a story. And I understand the poet you is not the poetic voice. Got it. Get it. But if so, if I start to assume you can quickly, you know, tap me on the nose and be like, no, no, Holly, that is not what's happening.

[Andrew McFadden Ketchum]

I actually get a little. This is getting me in trouble. I get a little tired of the whole the narrator is not the poet's. Not the narrator. Not the, you know, I mean, I understand that I should not assume that they're one and the same, but I mean, let's be serious. We're, we're poets tend to write about their personal experience, you know, so I'm happy to say that the speaker in the poems is me at 100%. I don't just, we can just push.

[Holly Gattery]

That aside, thank goodness, because then I can ask more questions without having to position them as extensively and exhausting.

Good. Let's, let's spill the tea then, as the kids say. Okay, great. So my first question for you is, I'd love to know how this book came to be. Now I understand that's an incredibly big and also an incredibly basic question, but what I mean by that is what was the nucleus of this in your head? Because things happen to us as poets. Or maybe it's just me every day where it's like, oh, there's a poem in that, there's a book in that. There's, you know what I mean? Like, I see somebody like drop a box of cereal shopping and I'm like, oh, there's a poem in that. But I mean, what made you think, what made you put all these poems together and then think, or what was the first poem perhaps that you thought this is going to be part of something much bigger?

[Andrew McFadden Ketchum]

Gosh, I have no memory of when the book started or sort of like the instigating poem. I couldn't answer. I couldn't tell you what order I wrote this in. I have no idea. I got divorced after 10 years of marriage.

It sounds really mean, but it was just sort of what happened. I had to leave on our 10 year anniversary. It was just awful. But we were separated and.

That was the day it was like, okay, we've run our course, it's not going to work.

And I embarked on a sort of. I don't want to go into so much detail that gets boring, but basically I went on a camping trip.

And just visited Judy Jordan, one of my great mentors, one of the greatest poets alive. If you don't know Judy Jordan, you should definitely look her up.

And she has some, some land in southern Illinois where I went to graduate school. And I was just visiting her because she's, you know, a dear friend and we were sharing these poems that I've been writing and I stayed in my tent in her yard because she had like 10 dogs at that time. She, she used to, to rescue pugs. She's famous for this. She'd have so many that you couldn't walk in her house. It was just ridiculous. I was like, okay, I'm just gonna pitch my tent in the yard. And then I went to Walmart to get, I don't know, something and I saw a 12 person tent and I texted her, I said, if I get a 12 person tent, just pitch it in your yard. Can I just stay here for a couple of months? And she said, do it. And I stayed there until it got too cold and then started and just moved around from place to place to place. Ended up in Los Osos, California and stayed in Utah at the Canyonlands national park for a month in January. It was insane. It's just, just beautiful, just life changing.

Vistas. Just, just the views made me feel like I could survive. I did not want to get a divorce, you know, I had to. It wasn't part of my plan, it wasn't what I wanted with my life and it was the right move obviously, but I was in a very dark place. I've struggled with suicide my entire life. Thoughts of suicide, doing better these days.

And just started writing about it.

Writing about being in a big 12 person tent by myself, just writing poetry all day. And I just found myself writing about the loss of my, my, my, my wife at the time and my, my loss of family. Been married, we were married 10 years and had no kids and that was a big part of the reason that I had to leave. And of course I've remedied that. Now I have three stepchildren.

Just writing from that deep grief and just being honest about it, you know, that's. That's how the book came to be.

[Holly Gattery]

Thank you so much for that. And one thing that I didn't mention when I was talking about the book and something that struck me when I was non, in a non creepy way, perusing your website, a completely, you know, I'll say like parasocial, but I'd hope consensual way. Creeping your website, that's what it's for.

[Andrew McFadden Ketchum]

I think I made it for that purpose, you know.

[Holly Gattery]

Yeah, yeah, exactly. Every now and then though, and I'm like, I was on your website, I was feeling such a. I don't know, like a lurker. But still, I mean that is what it's for. I'd like you to talk about the amount of accolades this book got because it is unwieldy almost in the best possible way and I didn't shout them out in your bios. I'd love for you to talk about it.

[Andrew McFadden Ketchum]

Yeah.

Let me navigate over to my website. Because this is going to sound really cocky, but I won so many awards, I don't remember. Oh, right, right, right. So, yeah, it was a 2020. Well, it was published in 2024. It was a Nautilus Award winner. It was. It was the runner up. It did not win, but it was the runner up. And for me, like, one thing that I hear a lot of people say is that, oh, I didn't win the prize, but it's like. But you were a finalist for that. Like, that's. That's the win. You know what I mean? So it was a runner up for that. It was a New York Big Book Award, Distinguished favorite. It was the Book Fest. Best Book of the Poetry. Best Book of Poetry of the Year Winner, Royal Dragonfly. Honorable mention, the Nashville. Nashville, that's where I am. National Indie Excellence Award finalist, Human Relation Indie Book Award winner, Independent Press Award winner. Yeah, it did really well. It did really well. Um, and honestly, one of my greatest accolades, you know, of my poetry career is the first poem in the book was featured on the Slowdown, when Major Jackson was the. The. The curator of the Slowdown, which was just a gift. I don't know if you listened to that or listened to it in preparation for, for this. But what's really neat about the, the Slowdown is that Major would write these little essays before the poem and then read the poem. And his insight into the poem was like. I was like, oh, my gosh, he's totally right. It's totally about. It's totally about that. I had no idea. But, yeah, so it's done really well. And I'm just really grateful that the post publication prizes exist because it gives you a way to. To still experience your book after you've published it.

[Holly Gattery]

Absolutely. I do know the Slowdown. I'm aware of Major Jackson and his wonderful work. And that is. I mean, I think that would be a highlight of my life if something like that.

[Andrew McFadden Ketchum]

Yeah, I mean, it's like thousands of people listen to it. You know, nothing I've written has probably gotten an ounce of the attention that that feature got. So it's. It's done very well. Yeah, for sure.

[Holly Gattery]

Yeah. Not to be disparaging to poetry at all. I mean, I mean, as a poet, I mean, I don't know if I could be truly disparaging. I always think about a conversation I had with a wonderful Canadian poet, Michael Frazier, and he said something to the effect of that poetry is in the basement of the art world.

[Andrew McFadden Ketchum]

It really is. It really is. It really is. It's poetry is on a, on a forever camping trip after a divorce.

[Holly Gattery]

Yeah, so, so when you're talking about had thousands of listeners, I was thinking about measuring that in the scale of like, you know, some podcasts that have like millions. I was like, listen for poetry that's as huge.

[Andrew McFadden Ketchum]

Well, I mean, shoot, it could be millions for all we know. I really don't know how many visits it gets, but I know it's in the, you know, it's, it's a, it's enough to feel like, you know, for once you're getting listened to. You know what I mean? Because the rest of the time you just feel like you're screaming into the abyss. And so again, and just for any poet out there, when you publish a book, you really should look into these post publication prizes. There's a lot of them and they're selective, but they're not really in the PO biz sphere either. I mean, a little bit, but they're kind of outside of it. And I'm not sure how that works, but.

It, it, it's a different audience than you, than you might typically, typically have as a poet. So it's, it's nice to access people who care about poetry enough to, I mean, they receive hundreds of submissions, you know, and they got to read them all. And you know, so it's, it's. I would just encourage anybody out there because you publish a book and then it, it's like it immediately dies. You know what I mean? Unless there's something to do with it. Like, let's say you have a book tour. Great, but I can't go on a book tour. I got three kids. I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm here, you know, so there's a way to give the life, give some life to the book.

[Holly Gattery]

Oh, I love hearing you say that. Because I never want to do really extensive book tours for any of my books and I see other people I know doing like 40 stop tours. My, I, I only get my children young for such a short period. You could not drag me away from them. It's, it's not, I feel like I'm sacrificing anything. And in fact, if I do go somewhere, I usually have what I call the family representative. So at least one of my children is my brain.

Times because I just, I just cancel. Yes, I really love hearing that. Now I do want to circle back eventually just to kind of put it on your radar to people who do work for poetry. But I, I have to ask this because I Giggled when I read it about the epigraph, which is from the Last of the Mohicans. You have to understand, I only giggle this in the movie adaptation. I had as an 11 year old, an embarrassing crush.

[Andrew McFadden Ketchum]

Daniel. Yeah. Uncas. Oh. Oh, yeah, he's. He's. He's a hottie.

[Holly Gattery]

Oh my God. Played with Eric by Eric Traig. I'm not sure if Eric goes by that name anymore, but it's. Stay alive. No matter what occurs, I will find you. No matter how long, no matter how far. I will find you. Okay, so I read that I hadn't gotten into the book yet and I was like, what am I about to read? And I would love to. I would like my 11 year old self was giggling. That's all. I was like, oh, but I would love to know why. Why? I mean, I know now after reading the book, but let's say for our audience who may not have read your book, why that, why that epigraph?

[Andrew McFadden Ketchum]

Yeah, it's, it's a, it's a heavy question. So first off, you know, I got divorced and went on this long camping trip and you know, dated and, and, and sought out Karen, my wife. I didn't know that's who I was looking for until I found her. And I was. Aha. This is, this is the one. It was pretty obvious, pretty fast. And I actually went to high school with her. We weren't close, but we had similar friends and so we had a little bit of history. So quite literally, I'm just saying, no matter what happens, I'm going to find you because you're the one that I'm supposed to be with and these children are supposed to be my children.

The second answer is a little dicier, but Hawkeye, as a white man who's been adopted, if that's, that's obviously not the right word, but has been brought into the family of, of these Mohicans who found him in when he was a child after his, his. His family on the frontier is, is slayed by another tribe and they take him in and teach them how to, how to live off the land.

And here I am. I, I was absolutely destitute, you know, on the edge of, on the edge of life.

And met Karen. Re. Re. Met Karen, who is herself. She's indie, which is the correct word for Apache. So we say Apache, but the Apache people, their word is indie. N, D, E E. So she's indie and her ex husband is Inupiaq, which is an Inuit tribe. They're prim Primarily up in the Barrow area of Alaska. And the reason I had. I left my marriage was there was a lot of reasons, but mostly it was that we just weren't a family. Even just the two of us. We just weren't a family. It just wasn't that we weren't a family. I don't know what else to say. That's just. Perhaps people will understand what I mean by that, or they won't. It's hard to explain that. But we weren't a family. And I needed a family desperately. I've wanted children. My first memory is of dreaming of kids. Literally when I was like four, I'm dreaming about having one of myself. You know, it's kind of. Kind of a little odd, but I'm built that way.

And I meet Karen, and I meet her son. At the time he was five, our Eli, who's now a teenager, God help us all. That's been an experience so far, let me tell you. But it's going okay. It's going okay. And Otis and Celie hadn't come yet. And then we took some time to figure out our relationship. And she was still married when we were just friends and. But it was, you know, it was on. She was in a very similar place, unfortunately.

And the truth is, is that she saved me.

She and the kids saved me. I. I needed to have a family. I needed to have. I needed to have babies. I needed to have teenagers, which is the crazy thing to say, you know, But I, you know, I needed. I needed them. And I feel that. So. I love Last of the Mohicans as a film. The book is a little more difficult, but I just found myself deeply relating to what he said to her in that moment. And I say to my kids often.

Don'T worry, I'm gonna find you. You get lost, I'll find you. We'll be good.

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[Percy Jackson]

You find Vecna.

[Andrew McFadden Ketchum]

We end this once and for all together on December 25th.

[Holly Gattery]

We have a plan.

[Andrew McFadden Ketchum]

It's a bit insane. Everyone in he knows where we are.

[Holly Gattery]

Watch out.

[Andrew McFadden Ketchum]

Get ready for one last adventure. We stay true to ourselves, stay true to our friends, no matter the cost.

Found you. Stranger Things Season 5, Volume 2 begins December 25th only on Netflix.

[Holly Gattery]

Yeah. Oh, that's so wonderful. This. The devotion is just oozing out of everything, saying, and I think devotion is such an unsung part of love. You know, there's always components of love and then there's sometimes devotion missing, and it's aspirational. I. I did want to talk about one poem that I read out loud to my broken white boy husband. And I, you know, that I'm talking about. It's a. It's a piece from a poem, I should say, um, because I found it funny, which, you know, we're talking about really, you know, deeply painful things. But, you know, your, your poem's really peppered with this adorable humor, I'll put it. And it, it can be very sharp and biting at times, but it's. It's biting at your own expense. Like, it's not outward. It's an inward kind of violence almost. And so I, I. Broken white boy heart is the piece from a larger piece. And I would love for you to talk about writing this poem and the perspective you took in it, which was, you know, you don't have. You're calling attention, you're shining a spotlight on the fact that. But who gives a goddamn about your broken white boy heart, you poor white boy? Yeah, yeah. It's on one hand, absolutely, who gives a damn? But on the other hand, people, you know, people. Yeah, but. But on the other hand, like, I don't. I don't feel like poor white boys in their hearts are, you know, need to eat up much of the attention and much of the empathy in the world right now. But I believe on a level of humanity, everybody's broken heart should eat up our empathy. So. So I really. I was really fascinated by, you know, as someone who. Who loves a white boy with a heart, you know, I do. I do find. I think it's important to care about our white boys too.

[Andrew McFadden Ketchum]

So.

We all matter. We all matter, you know, And I think I. I do think so. I mean, that poem came from.

Well, okay, I'll use past tense. I used to be quite an activist.

I have stepped back, as most activists eventually do, for at least part of their lives. You know, we. We do tend to step away because it's really painful, all the losses that. That you experience as an activist, particularly a civil rights activist. There's losses in all activists. I mean, that. I was particularly a civil rights activist, um, and I had to step away because it got that. That. That community really broke down. I think probably a lot of people have experienced this where.

Just some. At least the community I was in was really great. And then it started to erode and it got really, really negative and really mean, particularly the white men, you know, which is, you know, understandable, and it's okay. But here I am really suffering, and people are saying to me, your suffering doesn't matter, you know, And I'm like, well, I'm about to kill myself, so I don't know what you're talking about. But this is. This is. And if that. If I actually do do this, it's. I think it's gonna have mattered, you know, And I worked and work very hard. I have therapists, I'm on medications, I'm. I. I meditate. You know, I do all the. I do all the things to. To get through the difficult days, which are much fewer and far between than they. They used to be. Particularly when I was writing this book. And so, yeah, it was like. I just wanted to just say it, like, hey, you know, nobody gives a shit about my pain, and I'm Suffering over here. And I don't know what I'm supposed to do, you know, like, if you're not going to accept that my pain is valid just because of the color of my skin and because you think I'm a man, that's a whole nother conversation, you know. Okay, but what am. What am I supposed to do with it? You know? And so, of course, writing poetry was part of it and writing a poem where I, in a sort of funny, sort of somewhat angry way expressed that, you know what? My pain does matter and I got to take care of myself. And I felt really guilty about that. You know, it's an enormous. People who suffer from suicidal ideation and depression and anxiety and all those things, they know how much energy it takes to keep yourself healthy. It is unbelievable. You know, and people have physical ailments. Until you have a real physical ailment, you have no idea how hard it is to manage it. I mean, literally, it just takes time. An enormous amount of time and energy and attention that you would like to be putting on something else. Of course, I didn't want to be heartbroken about an easy divorce. And I. By easy, I mean, like, we didn't own. We owned a car and that was it. You know, we didn't have children, didn't have a house, didn't have them, didn't have, you know, all the things that now I have, you know, like, goodness gracious, you know, it was an easy divorce. You know, I felt guilty about even putting time into my own healing. You know what I mean?

[Holly Gattery]

Know what you mean? And when I read that poem and read it to my husband, what my, what my husband said as the whitest man I know is, is imagine if every sad, angry white boy wrote a poem instead of taking it out on the world.

[Andrew McFadden Ketchum]

And, and I thought, oh, I know, I know. That's really, that's really wise. You know, Ted Kuzer said something like that in the Home Shop repair Manual, you know that book, I can't think of the name of it right now. The Writing Manual. And he's, he's. He just says real plainly, if everybody spent an hour a day or half an hour a day working on a poem, the world would be a beautiful, much safer place.

[Holly Gattery]

Yeah, I have a super that not theory. I have a proposition that I would like the wonderful Canadian multi genre writer, but exceptional poet, Stuart Ross to do poetry workshops with every world leader.

[Andrew McFadden Ketchum]

Oh, boy. I don't know about that. He might not come home.

[Holly Gattery]

Yeah, I don't think Stuart's up For it. I just volunteered him and I volunteered Stuart because I was once in a high school doing a poetry workshop, and I really butted head with these children. With these kids. I was not doing well with them. I didn't even get put in a career.

[Andrew McFadden Ketchum]

I've been there.

[Holly Gattery]

I got. I got put in gen pop, which is like kids who were forced to come see me who didn't want to be there. They weren't even interested in creative writing. And a good teacher can make it work no matter what. But I am not a good teacher.

[Andrew McFadden Ketchum]

So I. Yeah, and I'm not sure I agree with that either. That's putting. That's. That's. That's like the greatest teachers can do that. The good ones. Yeah.

[Holly Gattery]

Yeah, I. I'm not that. But when I was leaving, one of the students, famously, now I tell the story frequently, said, I wish Stuart Ross came back here, and he was one that was giving me the hardest time. And I turned to him, I said, I wish Stuart Ross was here, too. And I was just so upset. Like, you know, I just like when a kid's like, I can't wait for daddy to get home. I can't wait for your father to get home.

[Andrew McFadden Ketchum]

Yeah, right. I can't wait either. So I can get out of. Get. Get you out of my hair.

[Holly Gattery]

Yeah, exactly. So, yeah, so I. That's just my thing. And, you know, when I. When I read that poem, I was really thinking about. Yeah. Like, you're. You're acknowledging difficult, complex, uncomfortable things. But I was. I thought, I'm so glad, you know, and, you know, as my partner pointed out, like, he's writing a poem. Cool. What a brilliant thing to do with these feelings, you know, like that. That's exactly what. What should happen. Now, before I ask you to read for us, I would like to ask a question about the voice in these poems. And, you know, we discussed the fact I could call it you, but what I mean is that you sometimes speak from first person, and then sometimes it's like you're outside of yourself, narrating. Narrating. And I was wondering if you could talk about those choices and flip back and forth between them. And, I mean, I. I feel like I can very comfortably speak to what I would propose, what I would put forth as your reasoning, but I would love to hear yours.

[Andrew McFadden Ketchum]

Yeah. You know, so most of the book is, he. He's doing this, he's doing that, and then there's a couple of I this, I that. But I think it's like, it's like maybe 10% of the book is in first person and the rest is in third. Something like that. To be honest with you, it just sounded better.

I think it sounded better to me because I am tired of myself to a certain degree. You know, I had published two books at that point when I was working on this one. Well, no, that's not true. I published my first book. My second hadn't come out yet, but my second I'd been working on for like 15 years. It was insane. Like, all I did was write about this one topic for, for nearly 15 years.

And I just. There was something about that, that, that third person point of view that, that bird's eye point of view. I mean, birds really are a big part of, of all my books. But this, this one for sure. And I just. That idea of, of he does this, he does that. I just. It allowed me to be more honest. And I don't even know because it like. Well, this is funny now I'm going to contradict myself because it wasn't. It wasn't me, it was this he, you know. You know, So I guess. I guess we're back to the speaker of the poets. That not. Not the, not the poet.

But there was just something about watching myself navigate the world, which in those days I often felt that way a lot. Like it was like I'm just kind of going from place to place, just keeping myself alive. And these amazing things are happening to me. I'm experiencing this beauty that I have always dreamt of. I've always dreamt of going on like a long camping trip, but just, you know, there was no time to do it. So when I had the opportunity, I took it.

And so it's just. As I'm talking about this, I have an image in my head of floating above myself and watching myself do these things.

I think it's just. It was. It's just. Each poem is just an act of survival. You know, it's like if I'm writing poems about this experience, if I'm writing poems about the grief of the. Of losing my. My partner. If I'm. If I'm writing poems about wanting to end my own life, if I'm writing poems about the truth of where I come from. My first book mythologizes my upbringing. And this book starts to be. To tell the truth of what happened to me as a kid. I'm not sure why I did that in ghost gear. My first book. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know why I did That I think I wanted to write the experience that I wish I had had.

And so just. I just felt it was an out of body experience. A lot of what I was just doing in my life and a lot of the poems I was writing and so he just made a lot more sense than I.

[Holly Gattery]

Well, that supports my thesis. First of all, I believe that we all contain natural contradictions. And I don't see as what you were saying as contradicting yourself at all. Things can be two things at once.

[Andrew McFadden Ketchum]

Yeah, totally.

[Holly Gattery]

Yeah. I also think that my, my thesis, let's say about why I thought you were doing that is having experienced a very life shattering breakup myself. And I. Oh, I know it's crazy. Somebody broke up with me, but it happened once and I. It was a very out of body. I know, right? Like who would break up with this, right?

[Podcast Host]

Come on.

[Holly Gattery]

I know, Andrew. It happened and it was a, you know, a long.

[Andrew McFadden Ketchum]

I got dumped so many freaking times. I don't even. And then honestly I'm looking at it going, how did I get dumped that many times? It's insane. I, I used to get, I always got dumped every time.

[Holly Gattery]

Now there's a. Forget There's a poem in that, there's a poetry collection in this, this conversation, getting dumped. But it's just. Yeah, for, for me, the one time it happened, it is the saddest break ever because it was. I, I dealt with it so badly. But I'm not here to humiliate myself on, on air. What I am saying is that what it reminded me of is that kind of out of body experience of being. Having something that awful happen to you. I don't want to, in my case, I don't want to use the word traumatic because I feel like there's genuine trauma in the world. And at least that's not what I would use to experience, to describe my experience. But that, that just being pushed out by something that is so emotionally jarring and so deeply unsettling that you're kind of seeing your life from the outside. So that perfectly supported the theory I had going on. If I had to write a review of your book, that is what I would have posited. And I also want to say though, when you're talking about, you don't know why you kind, you, you wrote this kind of family lore before. I have this thing that I constantly say to people about any previous book I've done is like every book is like a time capsule of who I was at that time. And like, you know, you don't step into the same river twice. Like all this stuff, like it's. It's who I was then. It doesn't mean that I don't believe or won't stand behind something, but it's a reflection of, you know, in some cases, who I was, like a decade ago. And, you know, I can speak about the books and, you know, who I was at that time, but it doesn't necessarily mean that I feel the same way about everything or I'm in the same place. So. Yeah, thank you. Thank you for sharing that. I would like you if you would grace us all with a reading selection from your book.

[Andrew McFadden Ketchum]

Yeah. You want me to read like a poem or a couple poems? What do you want me to do?

[Holly Gattery]

I'd say read a couple poems.

[Andrew McFadden Ketchum]

Okay. Well, it seems silly not to read Broken White Boy Heart since we've talked about it.

[Holly Gattery]

The fans want it. And by that I mean the fans. All right.

[Andrew McFadden Ketchum]

I'd hate to disappoint all the fans. Yes. Okay. This is broken. Now give me a little grace. I haven't read this poem. I'm not kidding you. I don't think I've read this since I published the book. It just. It's one I avoid because, you know, well, you'll see. Broken White boy Heart who knows how to write about love or its loss. And who cares, declares the voice in his head. Write about important things, anything, sweet Jesus, but yourself. Don't write about waking each morning from a dream with a gun. Don't write about how that gun might taste pressed to the tongue, a 9 volt battery, a rusted penny plucked from a wishing well and placed like communion where it is to dissolve. This man was married a decade. Exactly. Some sort of sick cosmic joke to have to leave your wife on your 10 year anniversary. But who, the voice reminds him, gives a good God Damn. Today is 697 days since the day he left and counting. Gone the pet rabbits. Gone the white dishes. Gone the immersion blender wedding gift. Gone the sweaters she bought him each Christmas when he finally said I must go. And what of it? The voice interjects. So you're sad. So you're air quotes traumatized. So you wake each morning reaching for her in the dark. So you want to die, die, die. So what? You will never have a child. So what? You are not deserving of love. You know what your mother would say? There are starving children in Africa. You know what Facebook would say? Another cop killed another armed black man somewhere in silent America. Trust me, the voice that inhabits him says stay silent. No one cares about your broken white boy heart.

[Percy Jackson]

Ford BlueCruise Hands Free highway driving takes the work out of being behind the wheel, allowing you to relax and reconnect while also staying in control. Enjoy the drive. Enjoy blue cruise enabled vehicles like the F150 Explorer and Mustang Mach E available feature on equipped vehicles terms apply. Does not replace safe driving. See Ford.com BlueCruise for more details.

Close your eyes, exhale, feel your body relax and let go of whatever you're carrying today. Well, I'm letting go of the worry that I wouldn't get my new contacts in you of front time for this class. I got them delivered free from 1-800-contacts.

[Holly Gattery]

Oh my gosh, they're so fast.

[Percy Jackson]

And breathe. Oh sorry. I almost couldn't breathe when I saw the discount they gave me on my first order.

[Holly Gattery]

Oh sorry. Namaste.

[Percy Jackson]

Visit 1-800-contacts.com today to save on your first order.

[Holly Gattery]

1-800-Contacts.

[McAfee User]

Meet the computer you can talk to with Copilot on Windows Working, creating and collaborating is as easy as talking. Got writer's block? Share your screen with Copilot Vision to help spark inspiration and use Copilot voice to have a conversation and brainstorm ideas. Or maybe you need some tech help with Copilot Vision. Copilot sees what you see. Let Copilot talk you through step by step guidance so you can master new apps, games and skills faster. Try [e-mail] copilot thank you so much for that.

[Holly Gattery]

I mean I think one of the things I find fascinating about that poem just on a personal level as well. Someone who is Iranian but also like my mom's, my mom's white. In fact, she is so white that in my phone I've programmed her as the great white. You know, and she, she really doesn't like that. But.

Like she, she's very bougie white. And I'm constantly negotiating with how to carry white guilt, which I have while I'm also not right and you know, all of these things and I found because so I, I liked your combat. It does reflect the ways I feel about things too. And it really, like I said, it just, it hit home and it brings up complex issues and thoughts with no easy answers and no answers in flight for that matter. Although I think it does, it does give an answer. Everybody, all white boys, white people with broken hearts, just write a poem.

[Andrew McFadden Ketchum]

Yeah, just write a poem.

[Holly Gattery]

Just write a poem. Not that that's gonna fix everything, but it's a step in the right Direction.

[Andrew McFadden Ketchum]

Well, and it, and it's day. It's, the thing is it's, it's even dangerous to write a doggone poem about it. You know, luckily, you know how many people really read poetry or care about it, right? So there is a freedom to being a poet that I think that, I think we discount that freedom. Know, we, we joke and sort of, you know, give ourselves a hard time for, for no one really caring that much about what we're doing. But then when nobody cares that much about what you're doing, then, then you can do whatever you want. You know what I mean? Like there's space to grow and to breathe and to say what you need to say. And so yeah, I, I, I tend to, you know that that was a scary poem to put in the book and I really appreciate you. You've given it some attention.

[Holly Gattery]

I liked it. And again, white boys who are listening, get off Reddit. Open a notebook. Open a notebook. With opening books in mind from Fight or Flight. Would you just read us one more poem before I fire two more questions at you?

[Andrew McFadden Ketchum]

Yeah, I'll read. A Trio of Crows. This is called A Trio of Crows. A trio of crows followed him all that afternoon through the canyonlands of Utah's fiery furnace, a place people go to get lost because they believe they will be found. From the salt white peaks of the hoodoos, the crows trumpeted and harked. Backlit by the sun, the crows sputtered and cawed, wings closed or splayed before the gray day moon. They hoped the man knew he'd either drop food or, or become food. Yet still he felt protected, companioned, watched over somehow, no matter the way. Is this all I desire? He wondered as he squeezed through a slot and stone. Anyone anything to watch over me, no matter their will, their intent or skill. Is that all I need? He asked. The crow's shadows, the high cliff faces, the sun going down as he pondered, turning back any manner of flight, no matter how wrecked or wrapped its wings.

[Holly Gattery]

Thank you for that one as well. It's a lot of your poems. I mean, I really, you know, read things in my head and there were a few that I felt like were just begging to be read out loud. And there's a certain prosody to the poems that's just lovely and just trips off the tongue, which is kind of fitting considering, considering, like the tripping, stumbling nature of what the poetic voice was going through at the time. I really enjoyed that. So my penultimate question for you isn't really about this book, but circling back to what we were talking about the people who work in community and, you know, people who are doing all the, you know, the work to. Not all the work, but a large chunk of the work to uplift poetry. Now, I'm, of course, in Canada, and I met you through Poem of the Week, and, you know, you were incredibly open to this, you know, wacko Canadian author curating a whole list of other Canadian authors to spotlight on your. On your platform, which was just lovely. I'd love for you to tell our audience a little bit about Poem of the Week and how it started and what you do. And I know you're up to something pretty cool right now, too.

[Andrew McFadden Ketchum]

Yeah, yeah, thanks for asking. So, yeah, poemoftheweek.com, it is what it is. It's a website. It's been around for nearly 20 years. I started it in the fall of 2006 when I was in graduate school at Southern Illinois University, Carbondale. And what happened was, I can't believe that this is true because I wrote my first poem when I was 14. I went to Virginia Tech and was the poet. Started a journal there. I started, like, a creative writing club.

Really, a English literature club that published the magazine called the Brush Mountain Review. I was publishing poems and.

Was doing well. I won the creative writing award. So I'm this poet guy, right? So I get to graduate school and Judy Jordan's. She was the professor for the first semester of Poetry. She comes in with this list of a hundred books that she wants us to read over the course of the semester, which I. Which I did. I still have the list. It's written in her. Incredibly difficult to read scrawl. It's. It looks like a something. It looks. It looks like a poem itself. And I'll never forget that at some point, somebody was like, oh, this person. Oh, that person. Oh, this person. And I'm going, who? Who? Who? And they're all living poets who you can, like, call on the phone. And I was like, what? You know, I didn't even real. I'm embarrassed to admit that I. I mean, I knew there were living poets, duh, but I didn't realize there were so many. Now I know more poets that I know what to do with, you know, and so I start reading these books, and I'm like, oh, my God. You know, this isn't, you know, owed to a Grecian urn. This is poetry that's written by people who are alive right now. And I can understand it, you know, like, you know, I loved poetry, but. But One thing that I always struggled with was, you know, I. It was a little hard to understand because a lot of the poetry, almost exclusively up to that point that I was reading was by the dead. You know, they were writing in a different time. Of course, it was complicated, let alone the fact that poetry is complicated, know, on its. On its own. And so I started this email listserv with like 50 people on it. And I was just like, hey, I'm just gonna send you an email every week with a poem that I love from this graduate school experience that I'm having. And pretty quickly, I. I think it was like maybe three months in, I was like, you know what? This needs to be a website. So I started the website.

And the structure it has taken over time is it features three poems from a single book, and then it features reviews and interviews, readings, all sorts of ancillary material. I used to interview every single poet every single week. I did that for 10 years. I basically got a second MFA just interviewing poets. But I stopped doing that because it was too exhausting. Because, you know, and I just wanted to. To give more space for other people. So as the Internet sort of blossomed at this time in 2006, I mean, there really wasn't a whole lot online. It's pretty shocking to look at the landscape now. So, you know, now when I feature a poet, I could just Google their name and find interviews and stuff really easily. So now I, you know, and that allows other people to. To. To take the stage a little bit on Poem of the Week alongside the poet. So that's been going on for 20 years. And on Valentine's Day 2026, if everything goes according to plan, we'll be releasing 20 years of poemoftheweek.com. 100 poems by 100 poets. It's exactly what it sounds like.

I don't exactly take five.

Poems a year for 20 years, and 20 times five is 100. It's not that well curated. I just picked the poems that I like the most. I just like, you know, you have them in your head. I probably had 50 that I knew I wanted, and then I just read the whole website. I spent hours and hours and hours just reading poems and just finding what I liked the most. Basically, pretty simple editorial process. And so that should be coming out on Valentine's Day 2026 with Madville Press. Pretty. Madville Publishing. Excuse me. Pretty. Pretty exciting stuff. I was going to do one for 10 years, but then I realized how hard it was going to be to do, and I just didn't have the space to do it. I imagine how hard it is to do 20 years. But I think. I think we're going to pull it off.

[Holly Gattery]

I think it's more important to do something than nothing. And I mean, your editorial judgment, having, you know, experience Poems a Week is. It's pretty spot on. So I wouldn't be too worried about it. Well, thank you so much for sharing that. Everyone should go and check out Palm of the Week. Absolutely. It is a phenomenal resource and I feel you on the burnout of biting off more than you can chew.

[Andrew McFadden Ketchum]

Yeah, yeah. Well, and I should. I should add that 20 of the poems have little pieces of original interviews in there. So there's some writing like gems. So it's not just really wonderful poems. It's also poets talking about being poets and writing poetry. And it will have a more academic introduction by Brian Broder. He's a wonderful poet. He's on Poem of the Week and he has published at least one book of criticism and many, many essays. So I'm really, in my opinion, this is the most comprehensive anthology of North American poetry and beyond just a little bit. But I tend to stick to North America because it's what I know.

It's probably the most Significant Anthology of 21st Century North American literature that's come out yet. Now, I say that as of course, the person who's making it. And there are wonderful anthologies that have come out. I can just think of right off the top, some that. That are absolutely wonderful. But this, the process that this 20 years of poem of the Week has gone under. Like, not only do did I select the poems, but for about 10 years now, I've had assistant editors and you were one of them. Thank you very much. I've had assistant editors who have selected, and I didn't argue with them at all. And I'll tell you, every now and then somebody would select something. I go, oh, I don't really like this. But you know what? That's not up to me. Know, this is their. A different aesthetic. I need a different aesthetic. You know, after a while of me picking the poems, it would get kind of predictable, you know what I mean? And so it's really been a communal effort to gather all these poets in one place. And they're really. I can't think of an anthology that. That exists that's been edited in that way. So it has a. The editorial scope. Of course, I sort of.

I'm flying the airplane. But everything else.

Is constructed by other poets who I had already had on Poem of the Week and really respected, I think you actually came after. But you're one of the few who I put in on Poem of the Week after she was the editor, by the way.

[Holly Gattery]

Yeah, I mean, obviously you have great taste, so I don't.

[Andrew McFadden Ketchum]

Well, I try.

[Holly Gattery]

Yeah.

[Andrew McFadden Ketchum]

I mean, clearly if you're on there.

[Holly Gattery]

I mean, if I'm on there, you obviously have excellent taste. So I don't question anything else after that. That's all I need to know. So that's. That's amazing. So I hope everyone who's listening will check it out and check out the anthology when it comes out, but check out the website in the meantime. What is. I can't even remember your Instagram handle. There's a Poem of the Week Instagram too.

[Andrew McFadden Ketchum]

Yeah, it's just the Poem of the Week.

And then my personal one is the Meandering Poet.

[Holly Gattery]

Okay, so you follow, check it out. You can stay.

All informed about what's happening with that anthology because again, Andrew has great taste and it's not just because, you know, he's curated my work too. Andrew, final question for you. Aside from the synthology, what are you working on right now?

[Andrew McFadden Ketchum]

I don't know.

I don't know. I mean, so one thing I know I'm working on and that I really am excited to talk about a little bit is I am co authoring a memoir with Dr. Stuart Lord. If you google him, he's findable. He's been in the news a good amount of, for his, for coming out and telling his story. He was sexually assaulted.

From the age of 9 to 18.

By his self proclaimed.

Godfather. I don't even like to talk about him that way. Who was also.

Part of his boy Scout troop. So this is a very disturbing story, but what happens in this memoir is Stuart was, I guess was a foster child. He and his brother were given up for foster care by their biological parents at the age of two days.

And they did try to get them back. I should just mention that didn't work. But Stuart eventually did find his parents and he and his father went to a cabin in Michigan for a week where Stuart finally told someone he'd never told anybody in his entire life. You know, Stuart at that time was, was, you know, nearing 50 years of age. You know, he hung on to this terrible, terrible story for, for 30 years, finally told his father what had happened and blamed him because, you know, his father wasn't there to protect him. And he and his father have it out for a week, sometimes very positively, sometimes screaming and yelling at each other, you know, almost coming to blows.

And they forge a relationship through that experience. And his father convinces Stuart to go to the authorities. And he went to the authorities, and they confronted his abuser, and his abuser confessed. Now he's dead now, but Stuart was able to get somewhere. He's able to heal. He healed himself. He's a brilliant, brilliant person. So I've been working on that with him for eight years, believe it or not. And we are. I think we're like, basically, I know a few chapters where I have not done as good a job as I need to. And we are going to be seeking a press for this book. So if anybody out there is listening, and that sounds like a compelling story, and you can. And you've got a publishing house, we need you.

When it comes to my poetic life.

I don't know what I'm doing. I'm writing a book. I have a title. It's called Unsubscribe.

I'm pretty grossed out by much of our culture, as seems like everybody is at this moment, kind of regardless of what your point of view is. It's very strange. I've never seen anything quite like it.

And, you know, I.

In this book, I'm addressing.

The need to. To unsubscribe from just all the. Excuse me if I'm. Maybe I'm not supposed to say that, but all the. All the. The nonsense. That's what I say with my. When I'm with my kids. All the nonsense, you know, all the way from.

Sort of this. The broken white boy heart stuff to in my dating experience, post divorce, I ended up dating a stalker who stalked me for five years and still stalks me to this day.

And the poetry community that she's also a part of completely failed to.

Completely failed to. How do I say this? Not to protect me is. How could it protect me? But to support me as that was happening now the community has done a better job since. I've changed that community. I've gone through and said, okay, I need to be more thoughtful about who I am friends with and who I talk to about these things. But just that failing of a community like that, I think that that's what we're seeing just in our culture today. There's failures at the schools. There's failures at the doctor's office. There's failures at the church. There's failures. Failures at Boy Scouts. There's a failure in the Boy Scouts. I mean, this is craz easy. You know, we're supposed to be working Together to live better lives. Life is too hard to be at each other's throats like this. So the book is. Is sort of sardonic. It's a little bit angry. It's sort of funny. I don't think it's very good.

You know, I will be really honest. I think I've got 60 pages of poetry and maybe 10 of them I would actually put in a book. But I've got children to raise. I've got, you know, husband duties, I've got all sorts of things to do. So I'm just very slowly writing about all of that in this sort of disastrous soup that I'm praying at some point turns into something reasonable.

[Holly Gattery]

Disaster soup. There's a disaster soup?

[Andrew McFadden Ketchum]

Yeah.

[Holly Gattery]

That's not bad.

[Andrew McFadden Ketchum]

There's a poem in that too. Yeah. All the times I got dumped in the disaster soup that is, you know, being a poet in 21st century America.

[Holly Gattery]

Yeah. I don't, I don't know too many poets who would say what they're working on is good, if that makes you feel any better. Probably not. It just actually depressed me saying that. In any case, thank you. Thank you so much for joining me to talk about your really remarkable collection, Fight or Flight. You can get Andrew's book anywhere books are bought or borrowed. It is published by Stephen F. Austin University Press, which I neglected to mention. Andrew, thank you so much for joining me today.

[Andrew McFadden Ketchum]

Yeah, yeah, thank you so much for the thoughtful questions and thank you for asking me to go down some sort of tricky paths. It's a good thing to do.

[Holly Gattery]

Oh, when you're rolling with me, we're going to roll down those paths whether we want to or not.

I appreciate your openness to answering the questions. I know they weren't easy and I appreciate you.

[Andrew McFadden Ketchum]

Absolutely. Thank you.

[Holly Gattery]

Thank you.

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[Holly Gattery]

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