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Interview
1990, WCIS television, CBS news
“Healing Works” art exhibit
“I’ve got a couple here that are shots of bruises or scars, that is a theme that I did for a while... A lot of times people that go through this kind of experience, they feel these scars — whether they have intentional, physical scars or not.”
Prose Poem: Scars
Janet Kuypers poetry readings from
interview/journal/poetry book “In Depth” 8/1/18 live at Half Price Books In Austin, TX
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See YouTube video of Janet Kuypers’ August 2018 Book Release Reading 8/1/18, where she read interview portions and her prose poem “Scars”, then interview portions and her poem “Children, Churches and Daddies”, then interview portions and her poem “Andrew Hettinger”, leading to her poem “And I’m Wondering” from her interview/journal/poetry book “In Depth”, in Community Poetry @ Half Price Books (this video was filmed from a Panasonic Lumix T56 camera).
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See YouTube video of Janet Kuypers’ August 2018 Book Release Reading 8/1/18, where she read interview portions and her prose poem “Scars”, then interview portions and her poem “Children, Churches and Daddies”, then interview portions and her poem “Andrew Hettinger”, leading to her poem “And I’m Wondering” from her interview/journal/poetry book “In Depth”, in Community Poetry @ Half Price Books (video from a Panasonic Lumix T56 camera, with a Posterize filter).
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See YouTube video of Janet Kuypers’ August 2018 Book Release Reading 8/1/18, where she read interview portions and her prose poem “Scars”, then interview portions and her poem “Children, Churches and Daddies”, then interview portions and her poem “Andrew Hettinger”, leading to her poem “And I’m Wondering” from her interview/journal/poetry book “In Depth”, in Community Poetry @ Half Price Books (this video was filmed from a Panasonic Lumix 2500 camera).
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See YouTube video of Janet Kuypers’ August 2018 Book Release Reading 8/1/18, where she read interview portions and her prose poem “Scars”, then interview portions and her poem “Children, Churches and Daddies”, then interview portions and her poem “Andrew Hettinger”, leading to her poem “And I’m Wondering” from her interview/journal/poetry book “In Depth”, in Community Poetry @ Half Price Books (video from a Panasonic Lumix 2500 camera, with a Sepia tone filter).
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Interview
Nation Magazine
They originate from Chicago, but Janet Kuypers’ poetry and prose can be found in little magazines across the United States. The work is personal, with a definite message, and you can always spot a Kuypers piece without difficulty. Her “i”s are lowercase and the words flow in a stream of consciousness. The work cries out to be heard like a lost soul at confession. Janet Kuypers isn’t a lost soul. She’s an active soul, productive because her heart is anything but lost. She knows herself, can articulate herself. The words, flow, the actions are swift due to this unerring direction.
She’s tackled all forms of media with success. Yet, she remains incredibly personal, accessible., More accessible, even than the individual without such accomplishments. It’s a people mission, a quest to interact with the world.
More engaging than her autobiographical poetry or prose, watching Janet’s life unfold is a captivating experience. Not many people out in the world are like Janet.
Nation: Exactly how prolific are you?
Janet Kuypers: Well, I try to write, just to keep myself sane.
Nation: Your name seems to find itself in circles of all variety.
Janet Kuypers: I don’t believe in having to be published in the “right places,” although it’s nice when it happens. I like being published anywhere, knowing that someone thinks what I have to say is worth listening to - and as long as I have a soap box, I love that fact that people listen. Whether they’re the university or the underground crowd.
Nation: Can you give us some of your writing background, as well as why and how you got into the publication circuit?
Janet Kuypers: When I started work it was at a company that kept me occupied 10 out of 40 hours a week... And so when I started submitting poetry to magazines and kept getting rejected, I thought, “If I was an editor of a magazine, they wouldn’t reject me.” Because I knew my work was good and that it deserved attention. So I started Children, Churches and Daddies. Now it’s like a baby to me. I get published on my own, but Children, Churches and Daddies is my baby, and I don’t want to let that die. So I guess that’s how I got into publishing. It’s a matter of knowing I have something important to say, and finding any way I can to say it. And apparently, people are listening.
Poem: Children, Churches and Daddies
Janet Kuypers poetry readings from
interview/journal/poetry book “In Depth” 8/1/18 live at Half Price Books In Austin, TX
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See YouTube video of Janet Kuypers’ August 2018 Book Release Reading 8/1/18, where she read interview portions and her prose poem “Scars”, then interview portions and her poem “Children, Churches and Daddies”, then interview portions and her poem “Andrew Hettinger”, leading to her poem “And I’m Wondering” from her interview/journal/poetry book “In Depth”, in Community Poetry @ Half Price Books (this video was filmed from a Panasonic Lumix T56 camera).
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See YouTube video of Janet Kuypers’ August 2018 Book Release Reading 8/1/18, where she read interview portions and her prose poem “Scars”, then interview portions and her poem “Children, Churches and Daddies”, then interview portions and her poem “Andrew Hettinger”, leading to her poem “And I’m Wondering” from her interview/journal/poetry book “In Depth”, in Community Poetry @ Half Price Books (video from a Panasonic Lumix T56 camera, with a Posterize filter).
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See YouTube video of Janet Kuypers’ August 2018 Book Release Reading 8/1/18, where she read interview portions and her prose poem “Scars”, then interview portions and her poem “Children, Churches and Daddies”, then interview portions and her poem “Andrew Hettinger”, leading to her poem “And I’m Wondering” from her interview/journal/poetry book “In Depth”, in Community Poetry @ Half Price Books (this video was filmed from a Panasonic Lumix 2500 camera).
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See YouTube video of Janet Kuypers’ August 2018 Book Release Reading 8/1/18, where she read interview portions and her prose poem “Scars”, then interview portions and her poem “Children, Churches and Daddies”, then interview portions and her poem “Andrew Hettinger”, leading to her poem “And I’m Wondering” from her interview/journal/poetry book “In Depth”, in Community Poetry @ Half Price Books (video from a Panasonic Lumix 2500 camera, with a Sepia tone filter).
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Janet Kuypers: I wanted to live, but I was raised (subconsciously) to repress anything interesting, to be like everyone else, to not make waves.
Nation: How is Janet Kuypers at 26? And where do you draw the line when it comes to social rebellion, and how do people generally see you as a consequence?
Janet Kuypers: Social rebellion? I see something that I know is right and I incorporate it into my beliefs. For me the easiest way then to get it out into the light is to act on my beliefs, be proud of my beliefs, and be fully prepared to explain them. If I can discuss where I’m coming from when it comes up, if I can make logical arguments for doing what I do, no one can argue with me. Even if they still choose to disagree with me, they at least understand where I’m coming from, can see why I’d think and act the way I do, and can respect me for having a cohesive set of values.
Nation: You say that one of your short films has been aired on TV?
Janet Kuypers: Yes. It was a short I did of one of my poems, “Too Far.” The sentence structure is very short, and it’s all about a woman who keeps doing different things to make herself look better. So I did this short film where the scenery was exactly the same but at every phrase I changed my clothes and my position, so it looked like some sort of confessional taping of these women going through this.
I mean, it’s fascinating to me that women can be treated like crap because they think that they’re worth more than that. Men don’t have to degrade a woman that already feels degraded. Every action a woman does, or thinks of doing, is clouded by how she will be perceived as a woman. How she walks. How she sits. I’m not saying men don’t sometimes feel pressure to be “manly,” but I think there’s a difference. Men have the power. Women always feel like they have to watch how they behave.
Poem: Too Far
Nation: How long do you think, realistically, it will take to create true equality between the sexes?
Janet Kuypers: What is true equality? In rape education classes, we were often taught that the way you dressed or your mannerisms could put you into a risky situation, and that certain things could in theory be avoided... Like dressing like a “slut,” for instance. But telling women to not dress the way they want to, even if it is to highlight their sexual and biological differences from men, is not the right way to go - you eliminate the rights of the women to be able to wear what they want to wear in order for them to avoid the possibility of being raped. (I’m not even covering the point that rapes occur to women of all age groups, dressed in all different ways, and avoiding dressing like the proverbial “slut” does not protect any woman from rape.)
Nation: What started your interest in acquaintance rape, and the need to liberate the female from society’s watchful eye?
Janet Kuypers: I think because I felt stifled, and by liberating the female I could liberate myself. I also saw the statistics about rape: That one in four women during college are raped, one in three women in their life times. And 80 percent of those rapes are committed by someone the women knew... A friend, a coworker, a boyfriend, etc. Those are startling numbers. And friends of mine had these stories. And frat houses made it easy for men at parties to do this to women. And there were campaigns all over campus for better education. I wanted to help women feel like they could stand up for themselves, that they didn’t have to take this. And for the victims, I wanted to do something to let them know how to deal with it, to let them know they weren’t alone, that it wasn’t their fault. That things will get better. It amazes me that women can even think that a rape is their fault, yet victim blaming is one of the main reasons acquaintance rape is such a vastly underreported crime. Women shouldn’t feel ashamed. They should feel alive. And no one should do something like this to them.
Poem: The Burning
Nation: Changing directions a bit, could you launch into detail on the origins of your musical history?
Janet Kuypers: I have no formal musical training, other than a little choir in school... I remember when I was four, my older sister would dress me up in sequined costume clothes, put on of my mother’s blonde wigs on my head, glue back cardboard eyelashes to my face... And I’d use a sheet music stand as a microphone and sing songs. My family even tells me that while I was still in my crib I woke up the family once in the middle of the night by singing at the top of my lungs, “You’re So Vain.” But apparently (still being a toddler and all) it sounded like “you pro-blee think this song is abough-tyew, doan-chew, doan-chew, doan-chew...”
I’m also interested in combining music with spoken word, and putting some of my poetry to music, or at least background noises. Something Laurie Anderson-ish, leaning toward her spoken word storytelling style
Nation: A few years back I remember seeing an advertisement in Children, Churches and Daddies for your musical ensemble. What happened with the group, then and now?
Janet Kuypers: That group was the acoustic band I was just talking about - Mom’s Favorite Vase. We were all friends, and it was fun... I was the only one setting up shows and radio spots, though, and I got tired of doing it all (yes, I’m a control freak, but...). Brian and Warren are both wonderful people. Warren’s the depressed artist trapped in a suburban man’s body. Brian is the type that brings his guitar to parties and strums “Staying Alive.” And me? I’m a mix between Natalie Merchant and George Michael – alternative yet soulful. Well, I’m not as good as them, but you get the idea. Either way, I love to sing. That’s all it comes down to. Music is so expressive – I love listening to lyrics and I love to belt out tunes.
Poem: Made Any Difference
Nation: How realistic or unrealistic are your dreams?
Janet Kuypers: Look what I’ve done so far. I never make a goal that I don’t think - and know - I can and will accomplish
Nation: Have you always been well adjusted? At the start of the interview you mentioned your old pattern of conformity. What was your childhood like, and what were the defining challenges you faced as an adolescent girl and a young woman?
Janet Kuypers: My childhood? I was a smart kid, and all the other kids picked on me, like you wouldn’t believe. I had friends, but boy, did I have enemies. What are we teaching our kids when they learn at such an early age to hate things that are good - because they’re good? How do they learn envy without even being able at that age to consciously define it? But I was taught to not fight back, not to argue with the kids, but to just keep being a good, smart little girl. What should a parent say, give the bully a good right hook? I took going off to college as having a clean slate - I even dyed my hair, changed how I look, as well as changed how I acted. I faced a whole new set of definitions people placed on me, like being a flirt instead of being a brain. That’s when I started dealing with the sexism issue. I was growing up, and it was affecting me more directly. The point is, I had to learn how to survive - and thrive from them. I try to take every bad thing that happens to me and at least learn something from the experience, so that I’m a better person for it.
Poem: Walking home from School
Journal/Book
changing Gears
Chapter 13, New Mexico
February 19, 1998, 2:31 p.m.
Joel Matthews was letting all of the Chicago people stay at his place. The side door was perpetually open, since no one knew when one person or another would have to get in. He has a big dog, whose name escapes me, that wants to sniff you and play with you all the time.
It’s a college abode. There are ashtrays filled to the rim with cigarette butts on every cocktail table. There’s a light blue vinyl covered couch.
It’s eclectic.
So we read at the open mike and tried a vain attempt to organize our stuff at Joel’s and then we went to a café/bagel shop called Fred’s Bread for a testosterone-filled all-male poetry reading, where Aaron read as well. And for the first time in three and a half months, I wrote a poem.
Wanna hear it?
I don’t know; I just got tired of hearing all these whining poets talk about how their lives suck, and seeing them all drink to excess (even more than me, mind you), and then I started thinking about musicians like Kurt Cobain and Michael Hutchence (INXS) who killed themselves, apparently because being married and having infant children and being filthy rich and madly famous and adored by millions of fans is just too awful of a life.
And I hear all these songs about taking drugs to relive the stress or the boredom, and about people killing themselves, or bitching about how little their life matters.
So I wrote a poem, True Happiness in the New Millennium.
Poem: True Happiness in the New Millennium
Chapter 17: David Jarvie
He finished the painting of me last Saturday.
March 3, 1998, 10:17 a.m.
Dave Jarvie had a reaction related to his diabetes and passed away.
I dated him. We worked together. We remained friends.
He told me he loved me.
I haven’t been able to stop crying. I’m alone in Louisiana. I’m waiting in this hotel room for another few days, by myself. I feel like this hotel room is a jail. Two double beds. One television set. A bathroom. A small desk.
I feel like I’m in prison.
I’m writing this not to inform you, but to stop myself from crying. If I focus on something, maybe the tears will stop.
Noreen told me that everyone showed up at the apartment - the police, the paramedics, the coroner. When someone that young dies, they want to find out why.
The autopsy isn’t back yet. Steve, Dave’s brother, used the words “diabetic reaction.” Brian used the words “diabetic coma.” This is all I know.
This is the man I’ve been dating for the past year, year and a half, and this is all I know.
I’m on the other side of the country, in a hotel room by myself, I can’t get back in time for the funeral, and this is all I know.
I miss him. I miss him dearly. This is all I know.
March 3, 1998, 5:00 p.m.
This, writing is my way to make him live forever.
March 11, 1998, 3:14 p.m.
I tried to remember these things, and I wrote the poem “Death Takes Many forms.” I’m sure this writing is not enough.
Nothing is enough.
Poem: Death Takes Many Forms.
Radio Interview
9/11/03
http://www.ArtistFirst.com
Radio: I’d like to remind everyone that you’re listening to the ArtistFirst Network, and this is the Authors First Show, I am Jade Logan, your host, and I’m interviewing Janet Kuypers, who has written many different poems, essays, a novel or two, and does lots of performance work in the Chicagoland area.
Radio: Welcome to all of our listeners out there tonight. We’re talking to Janet Kuypers, the author of many different poetry books, and the new novel The Key To Believing about AIDS and a government conspiracy.
Janet Kuypers: The Key To Believing is a private printing, which we have done right now for it, I’m working with agents right now to get it trimmed down for dealing with a publisher. But that book is about medical researchers that are looking for a cure and medicines for AIDS patients, and one of them stumbles upon information that leads them to believe that there is a government conspiracy about AIDS’ origin. And that the government may also possess the cure for AIDS. It always started off with a more intelligent bent on learning more about the virus, but it then also becomes much more action-packed, about trying to figure out how to save lives, and about saving their own lives when they got this information from agents.
from Chapter 1 of the novel
The Key to Believing
At that moment Kyle felt a hand on his shoulder and he turned to see Sloane Emerson.
“Hi, are you enjoying yourself?” Kyle asked.
“I was just wondering how you were doing. What are you discussing here?” She looked around at the group of women.
“Well,” the first woman started, “We were just discussing if we were to invite anyone we wanted to a dinner party, who would be on our list.”
“Let me think about that.” Sloane said, and genuinely thought about the question for a moment. “How many people could be on this list? Are we talking a small party or something larger?”
“Oh, just forty or fifty people,” the woman in black answered.
“If it could be anyone,” Sloane answered, “I think I’d invite Jesus Christ. Definitely Aristotle would get invited, and some of the Founding Fathers, particularly Jefferson. But Einstein would definitely have to be on the list as well, and maybe a few astronomers, too.”
Realizing how the women were looking at her, she stopped.
Grinning at the assumption she made, she tried to save face. “But I don’t suppose you were posing a philosophical question, were you?” She looked around the circle and saw every set of female eyes staring at her with disdain, except for one woman, who was rolling her eyes and looking away.
She turned to Kyle and smiled. “I’ll let you continue your conversation,” she said to Kyle as she turned back to the group of women. “It was very nice meeting you,” and as the last words were trailing out of her mouth she was turning and walking away.
Kyle shrugged his shoulders and smiled at the group, then turned and followed her.
“Sloane?”
She turned around and glanced at him, smiling before she spoke. “I forget that most people don’t think the way I do,” she said to Kyle, nodding her head to the women she just talked to.
“You know, you didn’t technically meet any of those women — they never even told you their names.” Kyle grinned at her response of a smile, telling him in her look that she never cared to meet them because they had no resources of value to her.
“I just have one question, Sloane.”
“Yes?”
“Why Jesus Christ?”
“So that when he doesn’t show up I can have the last laugh.” Sloane winked at him. Kyle never liked it when she made such rash comments, especially when she knew he was a practicing Catholic.
Radio: Is that why you frequently write about women’s issues, and why you studied them in college?
Janet Kuypers: I studied that in college, and ... and I think my family was really worried because the heard my stories and thought, ‘oh my God, what happened to her?’, and I would say, “No, that didn’t happen to me,” but that’s irrelevant. They saw what they want and whether or not it happened no longer becomes the issue. But the thing was, I decided I wanted to get into this because I saw, if nothing else, the fact that women were treated differently from men - even ones that were hard working, and driven, and oftentimes better than half of the men out there - they still had to deal with this obstacle of men looking down at our breasts instead of actually thinking about the brain in our head.
Poem: Thank you, women who work I
Janet Kuypers: So I decided to see what I could so to help women that are going through experiences like this that a lot of people might think are not a big deal, because you know, rape can be thought of as just sex, and they’ll think of it as commonplace (well, rapes are commonplace). I learned that one in four women after going through college will be raped - not by a stranger all the time, but by an acquaintance - it could be a boyfriend, or somebody they had broken up with, or somebody they had gone on dates with, or a buddy that they knew and felt comfortable enough with to bring them back to their own dorm. The statistics further say that one in three women will be raped in their lifetimes; that’s a scary statistic, because if you know enough women, like if you’ve got a family with three women in it, two sisters and a mother, you know, if nothing has happened to them, they might have dealt with this same kind of pressure somehow, even if the haven’t gone through a rape.
And I would see these things, and because people knew I was an acquaintance rape workshop facilitator, and I did shows about things like pornography against women (and that kind of thing), people would come up to me and tell me about how they’d been raped. Now, there’s nothing wrong with people telling me these stories at all, but at the same time it starts to wear at you a little, because there’s nothing you can do to stop these things, and all you can do is hear all of these bad stories over and over again. So trying to get that out of our system, it often helps to write them down.
Poem: Women’s Very Existence
Interview
Discover U Magazine, v2 Issue 7
12/9/03
Discover U: You’ve traveled to Europe. Can you tell me about Europe?
Janet Kuypers: When you visit, try to soak in as much as you can. The sights (natural and man-made), sounds (listening to others speak a different language can be fascinating), and feelings (the ambience of places are different even across the United States; learning different cultures and behaviors are memories you can keep with you) you experience in countries in Europe are different from what you’re used to. So take pictures, but remember how people viewed their land, so you can keep more than snapshots from your travels.
Learn the culture of where you are visiting. Do your best to fit in when you’re also witnessing things you can’t see in the United States. This is also more helpful when needing to ask for assistance in a foreign country. You at least show that you’re doing your best to fit in and otherwise not be in anyone’s way.
People are more relaxed there. Meals are different. Stores are not always open and will close for a break during the day. People don’t have cars everywhere like we do in America (European governments don’t give gas and oil price breaks the way the U.S. government does, so you’ll see tons of scooters and bicycles for travel). People can even use the trains or airplanes to commute from one country to another weekly for the jobs. Try to learn and understand the way people there live when you visit, and adjust yourself to this new way of living when in Europe.
Poem: Been a World Leader
Discover U: What do you want to be when you grow up?
Janet Kuypers: I think I just want to be someone that makes people think.
Poem: My Kind of Town
Interview
Penny Dreadful Press
2009
Penny Dreadful Press: Did you “know” you wanted to be a writer one day? If so, when was this?
Janet Kuypers: I liked writing when I was young. The first poem I ever wrote (for a class) when I was nine actually got published in Read magazine. I started writing more rhyming poetry (like the first poem, Under the Sea), but I think they were all pretty poor, looking back at them (I think I liked the idea of writing poetry, but I didn’t know what I wanted to say, so I just did what I thought I was supposed to do when I wrote). I also started taking a lot of pictures, and by my senior year in high school I got a nice 35mm camera. So I found myself in my spare time writing and taking pictures, while studying mathematics and computer programming languages. By my senior year I was accepted as a computer science engineer at the University of Illinois (the third best school in the country for it at the time, after MIT and Berkeley).
Poem: Under the Sea
Penny Dreadful Press: Have any of your early cherished beliefs changed in a major way?
Janet Kuypers: No.
Sorry, you probably wanted something longer than that. Religious beliefs changed, but those beliefs weren’t that cherished in the first place, they were cemented as grew. As I aged, I grew into my beliefs, and if anything, those beliefs have only become stronger.
Penny Dreadful Press: Do you think that we, the poets, have a responsibility to encourage higher readership? If so, will we have to give up anything of importance, or “dumb down” our art?
Janet Kuypers: I try to get my own work out there for people, because I actively want people to be involved with my writing and my work. Because I work to expand what cc&d does and has to offer at http://scars.tv for people, I never think about having a responsibility to encourage higher readership (that’s my self-imposed job as the editor). One thing I won’t do, though is “dumb down” what I want so say. I may have to edit something so it is more understandable to a larger audience, but I never dumb down my message. It’s my message. I’m not dumbing it down for anyone.
Poem: Burn It In
Penny Dreadful Press: Did nearly being killed in an automobile accident affect you as an artist?
Janet Kuypers: Yes. Through the 1990s I wrote about issues that related to being single (and probably feeling invincible), and just before the accident I was writing well-crafted pieces, being in control of my life, having money from a successful job and traveling around the country to experience more of life. After the accident, I had to re-learn to walk, and talk, and eat, and eventually even read again. The stock market crashed just after my accident, so any money I had saved started disappearing (and I was in no condition to control my finances then), and... And I became more concerned with trying to figure out how to get my life together than writing breathtaking poetry.
My outlook on the world — and my own life — drastically changed after that accident. (My philosophy didn’t change, it became stronger, but my perspective changed.) My writing ability changed some immediately after the accident, and what I wanted to write about changed. Combine that with other things that happened in my life after the accident (getting married, for one), everything changed. I have been unable to keep a job in my profession since the accident (and if you know me, I am a very work-directed, my work is my life, and working on cc&d was often the only thing that kept me going, because on some levels I need my work to justify my worth).
Immediately after the accident, I wrote feverishly (because I wanted a record of what I was going through during the recovery in the hospital, and I just released the book “(recovery)” with those writings after the accident), and as I recovered more, what I wanted to write about also changed. So the accident did change how I work as an artist. It changed my focus because I knew the precariousness and finality of my life. It made me consider the impact I want to have with my writing. I talk more with my husband about issues that drive me to write (issues I might not have considered otherwise, and I never had such a wonderful man around me to give me these additional ideas for my writing). So since then, everything has changed. But I think it also means I have new stories to tell in my poetry.
Poem: The Things They Did To You (5/18/18 edit)
Interview
Susquehanna University, 2010
TJ Heffers, Selinsgrove, Pennsylvania
Editing and Publishing Unedited Interview
Susquehanna University: What is the mission of CC&D, in your own words? How does this affect which submissions the magazine accepts?
Janet Kuypers: At cc&d, we want to let the world know of good writing. Simply put. That is why we try to publish good work that makes you think, that makes you feel like you’ve lived through a scene instead of merely reading it.
Susquehanna University: What political issues does cc&d try to champion with the pieces it publishes? Which of these is most important to the magazine? How have these issues changed in the most recent political era, since 9-11?
Janet Kuypers: As the guidelines mention, we look for writing that makes people think. Anything political makes people think. (Imagine getting two talking heads from opposing sides on the cable 24-hour drive-by news shows, and you can imagine the two sides getting angry with each other, trying to cut each other off to get their point across. In other words, people have opinions about political issues.)
And yes, over the years what people have written about (and what we have highlighted) in cc&d has changed. Because I am a vegetarian, a lot of articles, poems and short stories have reflected that. (Even if I may not personally support all of the things PETA does, for instance, some of the points the organization makes are worthy of thinking about, so I listed some of them in cc&d.) In the 1990s I even released on the web copies of the Unabomber Manifesto (which C Ra McGuirt of Penny Dreadful Press completely loved, and it’s funny that I posted this anti-technology manuscript only on the Internet). After 9/11 Scars has released pieces bringing up 9/11, and yes, the changing climate changes what people submit to us
Of course political changes change what people think about, and it changes what people write about. So what cc&d would consider and accept would reflect that as well.
Poem: September 11, 2001
 
See YouTube video of Janet Kuypers with her poems “September 11, 2001” and “Scratch the Surface” from her interview/journal/poetry book “In Depth” at “Recycled Reads” 11/17/18 (this video was filmed from a Panasonic Lumix T56 camera; posted on Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin, Pinterest, Instagram, and Tumblr). #janetkuypers #janetkuyperspoetry #janetkuypersinstagram
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See YouTube video of Janet Kuypers with her poems “September 11, 2001” and “Scratch the Surface” from her interview/journal/poetry book “In Depth” at “Recycled Reads” 11/17/18 (this video was filmed from a Panasonic Lumix 2500 camera; posted on Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin, Pinterest, Instagram, and Tumblr). #janetkuypers #janetkuyperspoetry #janetkuypersinstagram
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Poem: Protecting Peace can Put you in Prison
See YouTube video of Janet Kuypers reading her poems “Protecting Peace can Put you in Prison” from her interview/journal/poetry book “In Depth”, “Other Souls” from her poetry performance art collection book “Chapter 48 (v 2)”, and “I’m Not Sick, But I’m Not Well” from her poetry performance art collection book “Chapter 48 (v1)” 9/24/18 at the Chicago open mic Weeds (from a Panasonic Lumix 2500 camera).
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See YouTube video of Janet Kuypers reading her poems “Protecting Peace can Put you in Prison” from her interview/journal/poetry book “In Depth”, “Other Souls” from her poetry performance art collection book “Chapter 48 (v 2)”, and “I’m Not Sick, But I’m Not Well” from her poetry performance art collection book “Chapter 48 (v1)” 9/24/18 at the Chicago open mic Weeds (Panasonic Lumix 2500 camera; Edge D).
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See YouTube video of Janet Kuypers reading her poems “Protecting Peace can Put you in Prison” from her interview/journal/poetry book “In Depth”, “Other Souls” from her poetry performance art collection book “Chapter 48 (v 2)”, and “I’m Not Sick, But I’m Not Well” from her poetry performance art collection book “Chapter 48 (v1)” 9/24/18 at the Chicago open mic Weeds (Panasonic Lumix 2500 camera; Hue Cycl).
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See YouTube video of Janet Kuypers reading her poems “Protecting Peace can Put you in Prison” from her interview/journal/poetry book “In Depth”, “Other Souls” from her poetry performance art collection book “Chapter 48 (v 2)”, and “I’m Not Sick, But I’m Not Well” from her poetry performance art collection book “Chapter 48 (v1)” 9/24/18 at the Chicago open mic Weeds (Panasonic Lumix 2500 camera; Threshold).
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Interview
Poets, Writers: A Place To Display Their Works
Janet Kuypers Scars/Chicago Poet, Editor, Publisher
a by-request only interview 2/13
Michael Lee Johnson: Have you always wanted to be a published writer?
Janet Kuypers: So, after I had started Scars Publications (http://scars.tv) and published a new magazine: cc&d (“Children, Churches and Daddies” – the UN-religions, NON-family oriented literary and art magazine, http://scars.tv/ccd), I jokingly say things like “cc&d is my baby” — it’s approaching its 20 year anniversary issue, and I have kept that magazine running through everything in my life – including almost being killed in a car accident. After re-learning how to walk, and talk, and eat, I got out of the hospital and wanted to do something with cc&d, because THAT was my lifeline to the world.
Poem: What Have I Won
See YouTube video of Janet Kuypers’ September 2018 Book Release Reading 9/5/18, where she read her poem “What Have I Won” from her interview/journal/poetry book “In Depth”, then she read her “Twitter Inside” show poems “Out of my Element”, “How He Failed”, “Drinking Their Life Away”, “Labeled Me Again”, “Prefer Things Soft”, “Became a Jungle”, “Now I’m Strong”, “Spit me Out”, and “Painted Buddhas”, and then she sang her song “My Love For You Will Stay the Same” from the poetry performance art collection book “Chapter48 (v1)”, in Community Poetry! at Half Price Books (from a Panasonic Lumix T56 camera).
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See YouTube video of Janet Kuypers’ September 2018 Book Release Reading 9/5/18, where she read her poem “What Have I Won” from her interview/journal/poetry book “In Depth”, then she read her “Twitter Inside” show poems “Out of my Element”, “How He Failed”, “Drinking Their Life Away”, “Labeled Me Again”, “Prefer Things Soft”, “Became a Jungle”, “Now I’m Strong”, “Spit me Out”, and “Painted Buddhas”, and then she sang her song “My Love For You Will Stay the Same” from the poetry performance art collection book “Chapter48 (v1)”, in Community Poetry! at Half Price Books (Panasonic Lumix T56 camera Sepia Tone).
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See YouTube video of Janet Kuypers’ September 2018 Book Release Reading 9/5/18, where she read her poem “What Have I Won” from her interview/journal/poetry book “In Depth”, then she read her “Twitter Inside” show poems “Out of my Element”, “How He Failed”, “Drinking Their Life Away”, “Labeled Me Again”, “Prefer Things Soft”, “Became a Jungle”, “Now I’m Strong”, “Spit me Out”, and “Painted Buddhas”, and then she sang her song “My Love For You Will Stay the Same” from the poetry performance art collection book “Chapter48 (v1)”, in Community Poetry! at Half Price Books (from a Panasonic Lumix 2500 camera).
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See YouTube video of Janet Kuypers’ September 2018 Book Release Reading 9/5/18, where she read her poem “What Have I Won” from her interview/journal/poetry book “In Depth”, then she read her “Twitter Inside” show poems “Out of my Element”, “How He Failed”, “Drinking Their Life Away”, “Labeled Me Again”, “Prefer Things Soft”, “Became a Jungle”, “Now I’m Strong”, “Spit me Out”, and “Painted Buddhas”, and then she sang her song “My Love For You Will Stay the Same” from the poetry performance art collection book “Chapter48 (v1)”, in Community Poetry! at Half Price Books (Panasonic Lumix 2500 camera, Posterize).
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Michael Lee Johnson: If you had to choose, what would you say are the two best poems, flash fiction, or short stories you have ever written to this date? Would you like to share a link to those works-or send them the works themselves to my email? Send personal photo if available.
Janet Kuypers: Well, more human interaction pieces like “Fantastic Car Crash” are good. I wrote this after driving around the country, literally ten days before I was almost killed in that car accident while stopped at an intersection (though this poems has nothing to do with a literal car crash, but how live can sometimes be a wreck.
Poem: Fantastic Car Crash
However, one short story, “crazy”, should be on this list. “Crazy” is an exploration of women’s issues through the psychotic ramblings of a convicted killer, http://scars.tv//kuypers/prose/1994/crazy.htm, and when I performed it once as an impromptu feature, the host later said, “I think it’s one of the best features I’ve ever seen (Kuypers) do. Truly outstanding.”
Michael Lee Johnson: We have talked about your professional writing career, but not about how your personal life reflects your writing. Tell us something about you personally, that the world can see in your writing.
Janet Kuypers: I started life as an engineer, so I am analytical. I like Ayn Rand philosophy, so I am logical. (As a rule, those two things don’t make for a good poet.) However, that means I think through every detail – and every emotion – in my life, and I examine all possibilities when writing my work.
When it comes to that research I do in life, remember that I am a journalist. I met my husband on the train going to work one day (right after that accident where I nearly lost most everything in my life), and I started asking HIM questions, because I wanted to learn about people.
I think after that car crash, I wrote a lot more about death, and less about problems with relationships, because I found the man for me – my husband John. Like I said, when I met him, I asked him questions, and on our first date, half of what we talked about was philosophy.
When it comes to philosophy: I think most people don’t think about important things throughout their life; they just get busy going through the motions. (I suppose that’s why I seem to reflect so much on emotions, and interactions with people, and I let it out in writing so much.) I’ve learned that if you have something to say, sometimes poetry is not always the best forum for expressing yourself.
With every experience I go through, I gain new insights, until I’m driven to share these new ideas and experiences with the world. And since I want to share this all with everyone, I want to use every avenue I can to connect and give back to the world.
Editorial Note: In my opinion, in my small travels around the poetry small press world, as of this time-Janet Kuypers, and Scars have contributed more to the development of poetry exposure not only of their own works but those of others than anyone I know.
Poem: (Less Than) Two Minutes With Ayn Rand
hour-long Interview
Poetry Saloon at Noon
8/28/13
Ida Jablanovec: Any more questions from the audience?
Cathleen Schndelmeier-Bartels: You were in a terrible accident many years ago. How has that impacted your poetry?
Janet Kuypers: For those who don’t know, July 11th, 1998, I was stopped at an intersection, a car knocked me into oncoming traffic and another car hit me, and there were skid-marks from my car tires for one hundred and eight feet, I was unconscious for eleven days, I had to re-learn how to walk and talk and eat, and —
I —
I believe I died that day. And I don’t know who you are talking to now. It was, um, very, very bad. I’ve changed — I think I have a lot of what was in me, but I think I’ve learned a lot of insanely difficult lessons, that I’ll never be able to get rid of...
Poem: Isn’t That What It’s All About
Poem: Left with a Hole
Journal/Book
Bon Voyage!
20150116 8:07AM IST
20150115 8:36PM CST
While in India John said to me, “So you know, all the horn honks are not for you...” (because usually at home whenever I’d go for a walk along the streets I’d usually get at least one horn honking, if not a cat call from an open window, because men are often base and sexually rude that way), and I laughed and said I knew that, everyone honks at everything here because people cram into any spaces and do not use lanes or stop signs, I get it. But not fifteen seconds after he said that to me, that the horn honks are not for me, I sensed someone walking behind us. I signaled to John to move to the side so they could pass (because as a woman, being followed is usually not a good thing, because anything could be a threat.
But just after he made this comment about horn honks for me, and just after I let someone walking behind us pass us, then we both watched the man (probably all 5' 2" of him), even after he was in front of us, repeatedly turn around to look at me specifically. He’d look back to where he was walking, and then he’d turn around again, look at me for a second or two, then turn back to watch where he was walking.
He did this at least six times, until we got off that road.
Well, it’s nice to see that sexism and men degrading women is global.
See YouTube video of Janet Kuypers reading portions of her “Bon Voyage!” 20150116 8:07AM IST journal entry, then her haiku poems “don’t”, “unless”, and “cover”, all from her interview/journal/poetry book “In Depth” at “Poetry Aloud” 8/25/18 (this video was filmed from a Panasonic Lumix T56 camera).
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See YouTube video of Janet Kuypers reading portions of her “Bon Voyage!” 20150116 8:07AM IST journal entry, then her haiku poems “don’t”, “unless”, and “cover”, all from her interview/journal/poetry book “In Depth” at “Poetry Aloud” 8/25/18 (this video was filmed from a Panasonic Lumix 2500 camera).
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haiku: Don’t
See YouTube video of Janet Kuypers reading portions of her “Bon Voyage!” 20150116 8:07AM IST journal entry, then her haiku poems “don’t”, “unless”, and “cover”, all from her interview/journal/poetry book “In Depth” at “Poetry Aloud” 8/25/18 (this video was filmed from a Panasonic Lumix T56 camera).
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See YouTube video of Janet Kuypers reading portions of her “Bon Voyage!” 20150116 8:07AM IST journal entry, then her haiku poems “don’t”, “unless”, and “cover”, all from her interview/journal/poetry book “In Depth” at “Poetry Aloud” 8/25/18 (this video was filmed from a Panasonic Lumix 2500 camera).
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haiku: Unless
See YouTube video of Janet Kuypers reading portions of her “Bon Voyage!” 20150116 8:07AM IST journal entry, then her haiku poems “don’t”, “unless”, and “cover”, all from her interview/journal/poetry book “In Depth” at “Poetry Aloud” 8/25/18 (this video was filmed from a Panasonic Lumix T56 camera).
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See YouTube video of Janet Kuypers reading portions of her “Bon Voyage!” 20150116 8:07AM IST journal entry, then her haiku poems “don’t”, “unless”, and “cover”, all from her interview/journal/poetry book “In Depth” at “Poetry Aloud” 8/25/18 (this video was filmed from a Panasonic Lumix 2500 camera).
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haiku: Cover
See YouTube video of Janet Kuypers reading portions of her “Bon Voyage!” 20150116 8:07AM IST journal entry, then her haiku poems “don’t”, “unless”, and “cover”, all from her interview/journal/poetry book “In Depth” at “Poetry Aloud” 8/25/18 (this video was filmed from a Panasonic Lumix T56 camera).
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See YouTube video of Janet Kuypers reading portions of her “Bon Voyage!” 20150116 8:07AM IST journal entry, then her haiku poems “don’t”, “unless”, and “cover”, all from her interview/journal/poetry book “In Depth” at “Poetry Aloud” 8/25/18 (this video was filmed from a Panasonic Lumix 2500 camera).
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A Marathon Interview With @janetkuypers
PebbleInTheStillWaters, Jaideep Khanduja
2/14/18
Chicago poet Janet Kuypers is a professional performance artist and publisher, editing 2 literary magazines (“cc&d” and “Down in the Dirt”) through Scars Publications with CDs, books, chapbooks & videos. Multiple Pushcart Prize nominee with poetry and art published over 6,600 times in poetry magazines (thousands more online) and highlighted on radio and national and local television, she has 90+ books published; her 40+ CD releases appear at iTunes & other online vendors. She also hosted “the Café Gallery” Chicago poetry open mic for over half a decade. Her poetry as an Austin Texas resident since October 2015 has been published in local magazines & newspapers, and she performs 12-25 features/year.
Through her early adulthood, Janet Kuypers also worked as an acquaintance rape workshop facilitator, not only running lectures and seminars but also designing brochures, flyers, and newspaper advertising for an acquaintance rape group.
As an adult, Janet Kuypers became a vegetarian. Making this moral choice has also affected how she views her own life, as well as the world.
Janet Kuypers took over and restructured a Chicago poetry/short prose and music and performance art open mic “the Café Gallery”, that was the only venue in Chicago that had weekly YouTube videos and a weekly podcast (and eventually a collection book of select features, titled “The Chosen Few”). Because of John’s job change, they moved to Austin Texas in October 2015, and since then Janet Kuypers has been doing monthly performance art shows as well as readings (and occasional singing) at multiple venues in the Austin area.
Jaideep Khanduja: What languages can you speak and write?
Janet Kuypers: English. I took Spanish for a few years, and French even more minimally, but (like most Americans, it seems) English is my only language I know well. In recent years, with travel around the world (and with people who speak different languages), I have worked on translating some of my writing into other languages. In one project, I had a number of poems translated into Slovak. Eighteen of them back can be found in the poetry links at my writings vault at scars (http://scars.tv/kuypers/writing.htm) — and, many of them also link that they were published in a few books, and some of them (in both English and Slovak) were also nominated for the Pushcart Prize.
Poem: White Knuckled
Slovak translation, Biele Bánky
Poem: Right There, by your Heart (verses 2 + 6)
See YouTube video of Janet Kuypers’ February 2019 Book Release Reading 2/6/19, where she read her poems “Right There, By Your Heart (verses 2 and 6)”, then interview portions and her poem “Scratch the Surface” from her interview/journal/poetry book “In Depth”, and then read her #metoo / Lunchtime Poll Topic essay/letter “Weighing on my Soul” and her poem “For Far Too Many Years” from her Chicago “In One Ear” show “to the Bottom of the Earth and Back” in the performance art section of the cc&d v. 288 January/February 2019 ISBN# book “Save the World”, in Community Poetry @ Half Price Books (filmed from a Panasonic Lumix 2500 camera).
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See YouTube video of Janet Kuypers’ February 2019 Book Release Reading 2/6/19, where she read her poems “Right There, By Your Heart (verses 2 and 6)”, then interview portions and her poem “Scratch the Surface” from her interview/journal/poetry book “In Depth”, and then read her #metoo / Lunchtime Poll Topic essay/letter “Weighing on my Soul” and her poem “For Far Too Many Years” from her Chicago “In One Ear” show “to the Bottom of the Earth and Back” in the performance art section of the cc&d v. 288 January/February 2019 ISBN# book “Save the World”, in Community Poetry @ Half Price Books (Panasonic Lumix 2500 camera; Posterize filter).
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See YouTube video of Janet Kuypers’ February 2019 Book Release Reading 2/6/19, where she read her poems “Right There, By Your Heart (verses 2 and 6)”, then interview portions and her poem “Scratch the Surface” from her interview/journal/poetry book “In Depth”, and then read her #metoo / Lunchtime Poll Topic essay/letter “Weighing on my Soul” and her poem “For Far Too Many Years” from her Chicago “In One Ear” show “to the Bottom of the Earth and Back” in the performance art section of the cc&d v. 288 January/February 2019 ISBN# book “Save the World”, in Community Poetry @ Half Price Books (Panasonic Lumix 2500 camera; Sepia Tone filter).
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See YouTube video of Janet Kuypers’ February 2019 Book Release Reading 2/6/19, where she read her poems “Right There, By Your Heart (verses 2 and 6)”, then interview portions and her poem “Scratch the Surface” from her interview/journal/poetry book “In Depth”, and then read her #metoo / Lunchtime Poll Topic essay/letter “Weighing on my Soul” and her poem “For Far Too Many Years” from her Chicago “In One Ear” show “to the Bottom of the Earth and Back” in the performance art section of the cc&d v. 288 January/February 2019 ISBN# book “Save the World”, in Community Poetry @ Half Price Books (Panasonic Lumix 2500 camera; Threshold filter).
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Slovak translation, časŤ básne Práve Tam, pri Tvojom srdci
Jaideep Khanduja: What keeps you motivating towards writing?
Janet Kuypers: Usually one’s own thoughts, their drive, keeps them writing. When I have wanted to write something, it could have been from any inspiration. Once, for example, someone explained something to me while I was a passenger in a driving car after a semi honked their horn at our car (because I had a tank top on, which is apparently a real turn-on for semi drivers on the road). They told me that when a semi truck honks their horn at my car on an expressway, it is usually to inform other semis to be on the lookout, then they will radio ahead to trucks ahead on the highway to let them know of a good looking “seat cover.” Hearing this brought me instantly back to the section I designed for my book “(woman.)” titled “a Book for Men”; there were so many names men used to degrade women in our society, that I put them together into a handy little guide. So the next thing I wanted to do was write a poem about the ever-expanding list of ways to degrade women, expanding on “the Book for Men.” Because just hearing these things makes me makes me want to get them down, so these ideas are not forgotten (that men can still do things like this to women to degrade them).
Poem: Scratch the Surface
See YouTube video of Janet Kuypers with her poems “September 11, 2001” and “Scratch the Surface” from her interview/journal/poetry book “In Depth” at “Recycled Reads” 11/17/18 (this video was filmed from a Panasonic Lumix T56 camera; posted on Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin, Pinterest, Instagram, and Tumblr). #janetkuypers #janetkuyperspoetry #janetkuypersinstagram
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See YouTube video of Janet Kuypers with her poems “September 11, 2001” and “Scratch the Surface” from her interview/journal/poetry book “In Depth” at “Recycled Reads” 11/17/18 (this video was filmed from a Panasonic Lumix 2500 camera; posted on Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin, Pinterest, Instagram, and Tumblr). #janetkuypers #janetkuyperspoetry #janetkuypersinstagram
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See YouTube video of Janet Kuypers’ February 2019 Book Release Reading 2/6/19, where she read her poems “Right There, By Your Heart (verses 2 and 6)”, then interview portions and her poem “Scratch the Surface” from her interview/journal/poetry book “In Depth”, and then read her #metoo / Lunchtime Poll Topic essay/letter “Weighing on my Soul” and her poem “For Far Too Many Years” from her Chicago “In One Ear” show “to the Bottom of the Earth and Back” in the performance art section of the cc&d v. 288 January/February 2019 ISBN# book “Save the World”, in Community Poetry @ Half Price Books (filmed from a Panasonic Lumix 2500 camera).
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See YouTube video of Janet Kuypers’ February 2019 Book Release Reading 2/6/19, where she read her poems “Right There, By Your Heart (verses 2 and 6)”, then interview portions and her poem “Scratch the Surface” from her interview/journal/poetry book “In Depth”, and then read her #metoo / Lunchtime Poll Topic essay/letter “Weighing on my Soul” and her poem “For Far Too Many Years” from her Chicago “In One Ear” show “to the Bottom of the Earth and Back” in the performance art section of the cc&d v. 288 January/February 2019 ISBN# book “Save the World”, in Community Poetry @ Half Price Books (Panasonic Lumix 2500 camera; Posterize filter).
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See YouTube video of Janet Kuypers’ February 2019 Book Release Reading 2/6/19, where she read her poems “Right There, By Your Heart (verses 2 and 6)”, then interview portions and her poem “Scratch the Surface” from her interview/journal/poetry book “In Depth”, and then read her #metoo / Lunchtime Poll Topic essay/letter “Weighing on my Soul” and her poem “For Far Too Many Years” from her Chicago “In One Ear” show “to the Bottom of the Earth and Back” in the performance art section of the cc&d v. 288 January/February 2019 ISBN# book “Save the World”, in Community Poetry @ Half Price Books (Panasonic Lumix 2500 camera; Sepia Tone filter).
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See YouTube video of Janet Kuypers’ February 2019 Book Release Reading 2/6/19, where she read her poems “Right There, By Your Heart (verses 2 and 6)”, then interview portions and her poem “Scratch the Surface” from her interview/journal/poetry book “In Depth”, and then read her #metoo / Lunchtime Poll Topic essay/letter “Weighing on my Soul” and her poem “For Far Too Many Years” from her Chicago “In One Ear” show “to the Bottom of the Earth and Back” in the performance art section of the cc&d v. 288 January/February 2019 ISBN# book “Save the World”, in Community Poetry @ Half Price Books (Panasonic Lumix 2500 camera; Threshold filter).
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Janet Kuypers: Anything can inspire me — I heard a Morrissey song about Redondo Beach and a girl dying there, and I honestly thought it was too over the top, so I decided to write a poem — entirely made up — about a potential situation about losing someone at the beach. And in “You’ve let me on Siesta Beach”— a beach in a state I frequent but a beach I’ve never been to. I wrote about a jilted lover abandoning another, and the next morning, after not hearing from them until the next morning, they heard a dead body was washed up at the beach, they rushed to view the body, and — it wasn’t them. And the thing is, since that argument the night before, they never heard from each other again. And the thing is, it was hearing a song that made me want to write this fictitious poem. Anything can motivate me to write.
Poem: you’ve left me on Siesta Beach
Janet Kuypers:At this point I, think I want to express something about motivation to write. I mentioned (albeit too briefly, due to its everlasting impact on me) the near fatal multi-car impact years ago. And as I recovered I had a grand-mal seizure (something, by the way, the doctors informed my family, but not me, the patient). So they opted to give me Depakote. I stayed on it for maybe 4 years, with no seizures, before I was in the clear.
What I didn’t know was the Depakote was also a depression medication. And I tell you that this was an anti-depression medication because it was in that period of time when I had no interest whatsoever in writing. It was as if the medication numbed the will to do anything out of me — it sapped me of any creativity I may have ever had. And to a creative person, that is close to feeling dead.
Years later, a musician friend of mine from outside of Nashville, Tennessee, told me about how they learned that taking anti-depression medication kills your creative spirit. And when, in dealing with the mental battles I have faced because of repeated traumas in my life, it was suggested to me that I could take anti-depression medication, I said no. I said that my creative soul is the one thing I still have, and I didn’t want to lose my soul taking medication. So, I entirely agree with him, and I said I had no intention of choosing to take anti-depression medication. What I didn’t realize is that at one point I took anti-depression medication, and it killed any creativity I had during that time.
Jaideep Khanduja: What is generally your preference in reading – a paper book or ebook? And why?
Janet Kuypers: I’ve never read an eBook in my life. I have a library of books, and when I read submissions they are on my computer screen. And when I read in my poetry readings and performance art shows, I always read off a printed page — and I make a point to print large type, because I want to be able to minimalize my staring at a page when I am reading to a live audience. I believe that making eye contact with an audience helps make the audience feel they are involved with the reader in the performance as well.
Poem: Newspaper Ink’s
the Blood of a Dying Species
Jaideep Khanduja: Your other countries you have visited/stayed.
Janet Kuypers: I’ve been to all 50 states, and Islands around the U.S. — the Bahamas, Paradise Island (before tourism took it over), Puerto Rico (with dry & tropical rain forests).
Then we went to European countries (Austria, Germany, Italy, France, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Switzerland, England, Estonia, Denmark, Sweden, Finland).
Then I visited a friend who had moved to Shanghai, China (and we also took that chance to visit Beijing too). Later we visited Russia... I was on a boat when we docked in Saint Petersburg, and at this time of year in our travels dusk in Russia was near midnight, so I made a point to for once actually sit in the hot tub outside at 11:30 at night while docked in the U.S.S.R. — I mean, Communist Russia.
We then visited the Galapagos Islands.... and for my 20-year anniversary of being a vegetarian, I visited John in India. When I walked along the Naval base there, and saw a row of statues along the shoreline along the Bay of Bengal of leaders and prominent figures to the area. But what I noticed was that on the statue base plaques (in Hindi and English), the writings said things like “Warrior and Poet”, or “Emperor and Poet”, or “Freedom Fighter, Poet”. Poetry was listed on over half the statues.
Most recently we visited Antarctica. Beyond photography, we also went camping for one night on the mainland peninsula (and trust me, it was terrible, but we were there during a mini avalanches from the mountain we were on. We even saw a small iceberg “turn”, or flip around 180°, in front of our “campsite”. And we made a point to do the Polar plunge in the Southern Ocean – where you learn what cold really means.
Jaideep Khanduja: Some quickies: Sun or Moon?
Janet Kuypers: The second poem I ever wrote was on the spot in class for discussions about types of poetry, when I came up with “Moonlight”. I’ve photographed the moon at night, I’ve basked in the moonlight, observed harvest moons, learned from Laurie Anderson (when she was the Artist in Residence for NASA) that the moon’s orbit is pulling the moon one inch farther away from the sun every year (so if you think the moon looked so big when you were young, well, you may have been right).
Poem: Moonlight
But imagine how ancient civilizations viewed the rare moments in time when the orbits of the moon and the sun happened to coincide, and for a brief period there was a total eclipse of the sun. I am thrilled I had the opportunity to be at one of the places in the U.S. where the totality of the total eclipse lasted the longest, and where it the sky had the fewest clouds for the shortest period of time (so only a few photos of the beginning of this event were joined by clouds). We bought solar glasses for viewing the eclipse before and after totality. We bought filters for our cameras to photograph the event. We also went out to photograph the sun the week before to photograph it until we found the correct aperture to set our cameras to for the event as well. When we finally got to a spot in the park to situate ourselves for witnessing and photographing the total solar eclipse 8/21/17, we took pictures, and noticed the temperature changing slightly. When it was closer to the beginning of totality, it got suddenly dark, but also really windy and the temperature dropped close to 15 degrees. This was when I had to remove the glasses, remove the filter from my camera, and set it to auto mode so I could photograph the totality as long as I could — and when I took one shot, not only with prominences but also with the sun peeking out of one corner of the total solar eclipse (someone recently called it the “diamond ring” photo) I thought, ‘oh no, I can’t take any more pictures without damaging my camera,’ so I placed the filter back on the lens and reset the original aperture levels.
But I’m glad I got to see the sun and the moon fit so perfectly together for close to two minutes. I’m also glad that in 2024, I hear the total solar eclipse will travel across the U.S. again — and my house in Austin Texas is along the path of the total solar eclipse in 2024.
Poem: Knew I Had to be Ready
Jaideep Khanduja: What is your biggest source of inspiration in life? What is the force that drives you?
Janet Kuypers: My inspiration? I guess that would be how my mind processes the things I see and hear around me.
That sounds terse, so let me explain. I look for inspiration everywhere I go. At times my memories alone can inspire me as well, remembering plays or awards I have won (as mentioned in my recent poem “Only Voice He Could Hear”), or memories of challenging myself with the sky, flying an airplane or jumping from an airplane (as mentioned in my recent poem “Jumping, Flying”). In fact, while we traveled to Antarctica in November 2017, my husband John said to me that this was one of the most pristine places on planet Earth — and when he said this I had to write the phrase down, because that would be incorporated into the title of a poem written for my “Who What Where When Why” feature 12/2/17 in my final poetry feature performance in the final installment of the “Expressions” poetry feature series at the Austin Texas Bahá’í Faith Center.
Jaideep Khanduja: Some quickies: Glance or Stare?
Janet Kuypers: I mentioned a stare in my poem “Andrew Hettinger”, which is probably not the type of stare you are referring to in your question.
Poem: Andrew Hettinger
Janet Kuypers poetry readings from
interview/journal/poetry book “In Depth” 8/1/18 live at Half Price Books In Austin, TX
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See YouTube video of Janet Kuypers’ August 2018 Book Release Reading 8/1/18, where she read interview portions and her prose poem “Scars”, then interview portions and her poem “Children, Churches and Daddies”, then interview portions and her poem “Andrew Hettinger”, leading to her poem “And I’m Wondering” from her interview/journal/poetry book “In Depth”, in Community Poetry @ Half Price Books (this video was filmed from a Panasonic Lumix T56 camera).
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See YouTube video of Janet Kuypers’ August 2018 Book Release Reading 8/1/18, where she read interview portions and her prose poem “Scars”, then interview portions and her poem “Children, Churches and Daddies”, then interview portions and her poem “Andrew Hettinger”, leading to her poem “And I’m Wondering” from her interview/journal/poetry book “In Depth”, in Community Poetry @ Half Price Books (video from a Panasonic Lumix T56 camera, with a Posterize filter).
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See YouTube video of Janet Kuypers’ August 2018 Book Release Reading 8/1/18, where she read interview portions and her prose poem “Scars”, then interview portions and her poem “Children, Churches and Daddies”, then interview portions and her poem “Andrew Hettinger”, leading to her poem “And I’m Wondering” from her interview/journal/poetry book “In Depth”, in Community Poetry @ Half Price Books (this video was filmed from a Panasonic Lumix 2500 camera).
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See YouTube video of Janet Kuypers’ August 2018 Book Release Reading 8/1/18, where she read interview portions and her prose poem “Scars”, then interview portions and her poem “Children, Churches and Daddies”, then interview portions and her poem “Andrew Hettinger”, leading to her poem “And I’m Wondering” from her interview/journal/poetry book “In Depth”, in Community Poetry @ Half Price Books (video from a Panasonic Lumix 2500 camera, with a Sepia tone filter).
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Jaideep Khanduja: ...Glance or Stare?
Janet Kuypers: I also wrote a poem about a glance titled “And I’m Wondering”.
Poem: And I’m Wondering
Janet Kuypers poetry readings from
interview/journal/poetry book “In Depth” 8/1/18 live at Half Price Books In Austin, TX
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See YouTube video of Janet Kuypers’ August 2018 Book Release Reading 8/1/18, where she read interview portions and her prose poem “Scars”, then interview portions and her poem “Children, Churches and Daddies”, then interview portions and her poem “Andrew Hettinger”, leading to her poem “And I’m Wondering” from her interview/journal/poetry book “In Depth”, in Community Poetry @ Half Price Books (this video was filmed from a Panasonic Lumix T56 camera).
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See YouTube video of Janet Kuypers’ August 2018 Book Release Reading 8/1/18, where she read interview portions and her prose poem “Scars”, then interview portions and her poem “Children, Churches and Daddies”, then interview portions and her poem “Andrew Hettinger”, leading to her poem “And I’m Wondering” from her interview/journal/poetry book “In Depth”, in Community Poetry @ Half Price Books (video from a Panasonic Lumix T56 camera, with a Posterize filter).
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See YouTube video of Janet Kuypers’ August 2018 Book Release Reading 8/1/18, where she read interview portions and her prose poem “Scars”, then interview portions and her poem “Children, Churches and Daddies”, then interview portions and her poem “Andrew Hettinger”, leading to her poem “And I’m Wondering” from her interview/journal/poetry book “In Depth”, in Community Poetry @ Half Price Books (this video was filmed from a Panasonic Lumix 2500 camera).
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See YouTube video of Janet Kuypers’ August 2018 Book Release Reading 8/1/18, where she read interview portions and her prose poem “Scars”, then interview portions and her poem “Children, Churches and Daddies”, then interview portions and her poem “Andrew Hettinger”, leading to her poem “And I’m Wondering” from her interview/journal/poetry book “In Depth”, in Community Poetry @ Half Price Books (video from a Panasonic Lumix 2500 camera, with a Sepia tone filter).
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Jaideep Khanduja: If you had to live a day of your life as one of the living or dead personality, who would it be and why?
Janet Kuypers: It seems ludicrous to ask someone to fill someone — only one — else’s shoes. I believe that asking someone to fulfill this ethical question means that anyone who asks that question is pigeon-holing their subject to think a very specific way about a moral topic.
If I could be anyone for one day, who would it be. (Because I believe the why for any person is to learn more about history, or to understand the mind of the particular person at that point in history.) There so many, all for different reasons.
A part of me would like to live the life of Aristotle for one day, to know how his mind worked, to come up with the body of thought and the mode of thinking he did. And in the same respect, I really think I would like to live Leonardo Da Vinci’s life for one day as well, to truly get a feel of how his mind worked, because he was able to incorporate painting, marble sculpture, anatomy and science discussions — this man engineered not only military machinery but also flying machinery in his spare time as well. How can one man think of all these ideas at once? I know science and art can be so intertwined (I even wrote a poetry book with poems for every element of the Periodic Table titled “The Periodic Table of Poetry” with bonus element poems and compound poems, which even had a few poems nominated for a Pushcart Prize, including “Copper”, “Oxygen”, “Ununseptium” – which since my writing this now has a name, “Tin”, and “Meitnerium”).
Poem: Oxygen
Janet Kuypers: Maybe there would be a phenomenal amount of value living the life of Thomas Jefferson for a day. Get a momentary grasp on how men founding this country thought of slaves, for instance, and more importantly, living his life for a day may give an insurmountable clarity to learn what the founding fathers meant when they were actually building this country. (I touch upon this in my poem “The State of the Nation” because the Constitution was designed to give power to the people, not the government, so we have to learn the balancing act of freedom for security, and I would love to hear the thoughts of at least one of the shapers of this country.)
Poem: The State of the Nation
Janet Kuypers: Though it would be fascinating for one day to be embedded in the mentality of a mass murderer — not to try to change history, but to try to truly understand why someone could do something like that. (In the same way drivers passing car accidents look to hope to catch gory details, this concept fascinates me, not because I want to kill — I’ve actually been a vegetarian for ~23 years now, though I try to not hammer the point to people too often, since that may turn them away from even thinking of eating a healthier, but more importantly more moral diet.
Poem: Everything was Alive and Dying
Janet Kuypers: Because of this I, have only written minimally, about being a vegetarian, with poems like “Everything was Alive and Dying” and “On a High Horse Like This”. To understand the mind of a mass murderer by filling their shoes for a day, maybe I could choose to live a day in the life of... Hmmm, maybe Adolf Hitler. Whether it be at the Beer Hall Putsch (which I believe was a time when this short Austrian wanted to be an artist but couldn’t pass art school entrance exams, before he took over and made himself the Führer and declared himself a vegetarian, and when it is claimed he drank repeated liters of Optimater before and after speeches to give him vitality)...
Poem: On a High Horse Like This
See YouTube video of Janet Kuypers reading her poems “One By one, the Beech Trees Fell” and “Human Construct of Time” from the v5 cc&d boss lady poetry collection book “On the Edge”, “The Moon” and “The State of the Nation” from her poetry performance art collection book “Chapter 48 (v1)”, “yearning to break free” from her poetry performance art collection book “Chapter 48 (v2)”, and “On a High Horse Like This” from her interview/journal/poetry book “In Depth”, all read to “all fall down” Hotel Music from the HA!Man of South Africa, live at the final “Fort to Famous” open mic 10/22/18 @ Austin’s The Buzz Mill (this video was recorded from a Panasonic Lumix 2500 camera).
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See YouTube video of Janet Kuypers reading her poems “One By one, the Beech Trees Fell” and “Human Construct of Time” from the v5 cc&d boss lady poetry collection book “On the Edge”, “The Moon” and “The State of the Nation” from her poetry performance art collection book “Chapter 48 (v1)”, “yearning to break free” from her poetry performance art collection book “Chapter 48 (v2)”, and “On a High Horse Like This” from her interview/journal/poetry book “In Depth”, all read to “all fall down” Hotel Music from the HA!Man of South Africa, live at the final “Fort to Famous” open mic 10/22/18 @ Austin’s The Buzz Mill (this video was recorded from a Panasonic Lumix T56 camera).
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See YouTube video 11/17/18 of Janet Kuypers reading her poems “Everything was Alive and Dying” and “On a High Horse Like This” from her interview/journal/poetry book “In Depth” at “Recycled Reads” (from a Panasonic Lumix T56 camera).
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See YouTube video 11/17/18 of Janet Kuypers reading her poems “Everything was Alive and Dying” and “On a High Horse Like This” from her interview/journal/poetry book “In Depth” at “Recycled Reads” (from a Panasonic Lumix 2500 camera).
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Janet Kuypers: Although this was a fun thought experiment, I suppose my answer would be that I do not want to fill any one person’s shoes for one day. Even though I’m a poet, I’m too logical, and too much of a realist to know there’s no point in trying to imagine what any other person’s live might have been like, instead of focusing on your own life, improving that and making the world a better place that way.
Interview
JohnMac weekly Radio show
“interviews with interesting people”, 5/13/18
(talking in phone conversation with someone who called into the radio show) “— and as wired, and as wired. I think my husband was talking to his mother for Mother’s Day today, and he said that Janet wasn’t feeling well - I wasn’t feeling well earlier today. But he comes downstairs and see that I’m working on my laptop video editing, and I’m like, “I can’t just lay here, I have to be doing something.” And John explains to his mother, “Yes, Janet is a human doing, not a human being. She can’t just sit around, she’s got to do something, all the time.”
—
Things come in waves, and I try to roll with the tides, and come in stronger every time.
I was asked, “What would you want to tell people on the radio?” earlier today, and what I said is, “You might, if you look at things that I have written, or videos that I’ve posted on YouTube, or things that I’ve published, you might look at me and think that I’m pretty much an open book, because I let a lot out when I do. But... you probably don’t know me that well, because we all have ways to hide what is truest to ourselves, and there still are things that we are too afraid to share with the rest of the world. Even though I might seem like an open book, there is still a lot about me that you don’t know.
Maybe you’ll just have to come bother me more to find out more about the real me.
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Thanks to John Yotko for photos of Janet Kuypers while she was reading from her interview/ journal/poetry Janet Kuypers paperback book “In Depth” 8/11/18 during the “Poetry Aloud” open mic in Georgetown.
Thanks to John Yotko for photos of Janet Kuypers while she was reading her poem “the Burning” from her interview/ journal/poetry Janet Kuypers paperback book “In Depth” 8/12/18 during the “Spoken and Heard” open mic at Kick Butt Coffee in Austin.
Thanks to John Yotko for photos of Janet Kuypers while she was reading from the newly released interview/journal/poetry book “In Depth” 8/25/18 @ Georgetown’ “Poetry Aloud” open mic.
Thanks to John Yotko for photos of Janet Kuypers while she was reading from her newly released interview/journal/poetry book “In Depth”, 9/3/18 during Austin’s “Spoken and Heard” open mic at Kick Butt Coffee.
Thank you to Thom Woodruff for taking photos of Janet Kuypers reading from her Scars Publications new interview/journal/poetry book “In Depth” to poets & audience members during two of her feature readings at Community Poetry! at Half Price Books in Austin, Texas 9/5/18.
Thanks to John Yotko for taking photos in Austin of Janet Kuypers reading her poem “Burn It In” from the Janet Kuypers interview/journal/poetry book “In Depth” live 10/15/18 during one of the last “Fort to Famous” open mics at The Buzz Mill.
Thanks to John Yotko for taking photos in Austin of Janet Kuypers while she was reading her poems “Burn It In” from the Janet Kuypers interview/journal/poetry book “In Depth”, “Ultimate Connectivity: a bird in the hand” from the Janet Kuypers poetry performance art collection book “Chapter 48 (v2)”, and “Observations Nine and Six” from the Janet Kuypers poetry performance art collection book “Chapter 48 (v1)”. Photography from the iPhone also created “.mov” files of snippets and partial phrases of the Janet Kuypers readings.
