Article in Hipfish, November, 2002, by Dinah Urell:

Performance Poet John Kulm Writes About Farming and Other Things.
Monday Mic at The River Theater · Monday, November 11, 7:30pm · $1

Back in September, Monday Mike at The River hosted the baritoned, bigger than life, cosmic father of Portland performance poetry, Mr. Walt Curtis. While Curtis is a fine literary gentleman, his performance scene is about the scene. He is no staid perfectionist when it comes to reciting poetry. If you find yourself in a Curtis reading muttering, "Hey that's not how it goes," Walt could give a crap. To reach people intellectually and make changes in the psyche, you've got to stir the cauldron, and drink of the elixir, to excite the world where Walt's poems find their origin, or else you have nothing less than, well not even a good snore.

Monday Mike always begins with the Open Mic session. That particular night brought new and fresh energy to the floor along with some of the region's true and tested scholarly creatives. And John Kulm was there. Not that he hasn't been on the River stage a number of times. (In 1999 he performed Fatherly Advice and is usually one of the last blokes to cap off The River's yearly live fundraiser).

This Monday Mike, Kulm delivered, from memory, a poem from his recent first release of poetry and free verse, The Five Stages of Quitting Farming (Gazoobi tales Publishing). It was called Next Year Country. Now if you're on to Kulm, you've seen him on stage, you know he's keen to lead you "I know not where" and that's the beauty. Just when you think you've got some red neck homophobic -- albeit handsome devil -- on stage bringing up Lesbians, strutting cowboy boots and a Stetson, and you're ready to write a letter to the board -- bam! He opens up your mind, and deep and knowing laughter follows. Sorta like Emeril kicking it up a notch in the food of life department.

But that night there wasn't anything funny about Next Year Country. It was serious stuff, compassionate, powerful. Tear invoking, rather than laugh provoking. Walt Curtis, offering a not-so-discretionary arm chair commentary to each and every poet guinea pig, proclaimed, "This guy has been on the circuit." Hecklers be blessed.
Next Year Country is the first poem in the second stage of Kulm's book. He used the five stages of grief according to Kubler-Ross as his framework that go something like: Denial, Depression, Guilt, Anger, An Interruption May Occur (hey, wait a minute), and Acceptance. "I had a bunch of poems about leaving the farm, and I wasn't sure how to format them into a book," says Kulm. "I was thinking about the five stages of grief because my father died. So, I was thinking, 'Five stages of grief . . . quitting farming . . . five stages . . . quitting farming. Eureka!' Since my publisher didn't like 'Eureka!' as a title we went with the first idea." Kulm was also searching for a way to tell a story, so, rather than just a series of random poems, it's a story about loss.
Kulm is from four generations of farmers. He helped his parents grow apples and corn on a farm in Quincy, Washington and eventually took over the operation. Like most of the traditional industries of America, such as logging and fishing, farming has suffered its setbacks and in today's economy many farmers have only one option: give up.

Through his daily trials and tribulations as a farmer, uniquely enough, Kulm also gave it a go as a stand-up comic. He claims he wasn't very good. If so, then failure is a good teacher. Somewhere along the line he picked up a banjo, boots and cowboy hat and found himself performing at the alternative rock festival, Lollapalooza in '94 as a cowboy poet. In his words, "Sharing humorous cowboy poems was easy; it was like telling a joke, but sharing serious stuff with the public was riskier."
Since then he has graced many a challenging stage, from the Impala in LA, to the Adelaide Fringe Festival in Australia,; The People's Poetry Gathering in Manhattan, and NPR's All Things Considered. Rather worldly for a guy who lives in small town in Chinook, Washington. He is also an avid poetry slam advocate and plans to bring some of it to the region.

Editor Dr. Jens Lund cites that Kulm's writing carries on a long tradition of composing poems about farming. And, of course, before the days of television and radio, people working in isolated locales made their own entertainment -- expressing the challenges of difficult and dangerous work often through folk poetry.
Kulm, in his book, talks about the "real farmer." He explains that like any work, "There are guys who do it, and then there are guys who live like it's their calling, like a priest is called to the ministry. I was more like a very involved lay-person." Kulm also explains he is not a "farmer poet, the way some guys are cowboy poets. What I am is a poet who writes about farming. I have other things I want to write about, too. I don't want to be put into a little box: farmer-specific-poet."

Upon meeting him, John Kulm certainly doesn't posses any immediate qualities that would distinguish him as a farmer. But his poems and stories about farming in America certainly indicate he was there. And although he writes about farming, unlike his folk poetry predecessors, Kulm mixes his farm lore with modern conceptualism. It's like we are primarily compelled as readers or audience members to identify with his plight, and farming happens to be the backdrop. You really don't have to have an iota of interest in farming to be moved by these farming stories -- whether you're laughing or sensing the dark areas.

Humorist, poet, devil's advocate, story teller, conceptualist, farmer. One thing is for certain, in addition to his work as a columnist for hipfish (Explain Yourself), John Kulm is a formidable talent on his way to the spotlight as a top American performance poet. He will stir your earthly cauldron with his sharply honed mental farm shovel.