Okie Craft: An Interview with Ken Hada
The Okie Craft Series focuses on the Oklahoma writing life. We interview writers across the state about their writing practice and about what it means to be part of the Oklahoma literary community.
We asked poet and professor Ken Hada about his writing practice and recent poetry collection, Nexus (Turning Plow Press, 2026). Here’s what he said.
We’ll start with the question we ask all our interviewees: What does it mean for you to be an “Oklahoma writer”?
An Oklahoma writer means to belong to a large, sometimes dysfunctional family, a bunch of honest cousins who understand our state's complex and contradictory and violent history, but resist the temptation to exploit or excuse. Oklahoma poets are honest enough to seek redemptive possibilities within our associations and demonstrate them in our writing.
One can live and write in this state, but not be an Oklahoma writer. Also, writers coming into our state, who respect our situations, both contemporary and historical, are welcome to a family of seekers and truth-tellers.
Oklahoma writers are honest, unpretentious.
An Oklahoma writer respects, embraces, lives diversity.
An Oklahoma writer is progressive but values the best of tradition.
Oklahoma writers know their place in history, even as they realize and persevere in their often underrated status – all the while making significant contributions to various contemporary American cultures.
An Oklahoma writer lives in communion with the land and the nonhuman life that frames our existence.
Oklahoma writers are self-reflexive storytellers with a flair for song and an innate bent toward Natural imagery – something like how we understand the artistic, familial psychology depicted by an abandoned plow, or the way we paint murals on out-of-the-way city walls.
Your most recent book-length publication is Nexus (Turning Plow Press 2026). Would you tell us a little about that collection?
Nexus came together in the last two years, really year and a half. I was in a really good writing mood. A lot of phrases were coming to me in new ways, and I followed that energy. The title "Nexus" was suggested by Paul Bowers at Turning Plow Press, who explained that the collection featured a lot of inter-sectioning, a lot of coming together: vertical/horizontal, human/divine, faith/doubt, anger/peace, personal/communal, interior/exterior, and so forth. I liked that, and I think he is right.
I am very happy with the collection. Sometimes I worry that I am just saying the same things over, repeating a certain style, but Bowers and several other readers whom I trust, assure me that though some of the contexts and topics may be familiar as in my previous books, I am saying things in new ways.
And that matters to me. I want to grow as an artist, and I want readers to experience that growth with me. I want them to like what they see and hear and purchase. So, I'm pretty confident, and happy, that my works demonstrate a continuous motion. I want to avoid static. I think Nexus does this as well.
What advice do you have for younger writers looking to get involved in the writing community?
I think young writers can take their cue from the music community. In music, we are suspicious of those who don't know the music tradition, who seem audacious, maybe irreverent or ignorant of what has preceded them. Some even posing as original, and we're thinking "What? That's not new at all. Who do you think you are?"
In other words, I think we should respect the work of our elders. And I don't say this because I am getting a bit older. There is something wonderfully youthful about art, about writing. It tends to be regenerative. It is tenuous and therefore fresh, young, newly born. And that is wonderful! In a very real sense, writing keeps me young. But, that youthful, energy, that newness, is intensified and developed by an awareness of our places in history.
Oklahoma has, for the most part, a supportive writing community. Generally speaking, we support and applaud the achievements of our family members. I know most of my friends are really excited to see the emergence of younger Oklahoma. They have something to say, and we want to hear it. But don't put us out to pasture. We're family.
Practically, don't be in too big of a hurry to become known. Practice what Wynton Marsalis calls "sustained intensity" i.e., keep moving, but don't burn out or blow up prematurely by creating unrealistic expectations, delusions of grandeur, or expecting a dramatic, once-in-a-lifetime moment that puts you into another orbit. Stay focused. Be humble, but believe in yourself. Keep developing, keep reading, keep revising. Revise, revise, revise.
Read everything, but also read your regional Oklahoma authors.
Expect rejection. Develop a thick skin.
Listen to others. Go to open mics to hear and learn, as much as to practice your own voice.
Is there a poem you wish you wrote? An author whose work you keep coming back to?
This is an impossible question for me. I'm not trying to be evasive or clever, it's just a question that stymies me. At least you asked it well, not asking "who is your favorite poet?"😊
It's hard for me to answer because I am an eclectic reader, and almost anyone, at a given moment, answers this question. As I'm writing this answer this morning at sunrise, for some reason Jane Kenyon's "Let Evening Come" comes to mind. I am moved by poets who write through suffering. I admire, and envy, grace.
As I watch my father's uncertain navigation into his 9th decade, Dylan Thomas' "Do Not Go Gentle Into that Good Night" has been in my headspace a lot lately. Generally speaking, almost any literature that involves brothers, fathers/sons, family, moves me, either with inspiration or with evocation.
Emily's "I Heard a Fly Buzz" seems to me to be a great poem that demonstrates the power of artistic imagination mixing with, and correcting, instructing custom and culture.
Honestly, I really enjoy finding a gem in some lesser known poet. This happens all the time for me, which is just one of the reasons why I insist that we should read everyone, including the regional, and relatively unknown writers frequently. My friend Alan Berecka's poem "Leveling" is one example of this for me. I can't quite explain its hold on me. Maybe because I know the poet as a dear friend, and sense his humor masking his pain?
I deeply admire poets from historically marginalized contexts who artistically bring history and personal epiphanies together. I truly enjoy, and learn from Natasha Trethewey, Traci K. Smith and Quraysh Ali Lansana, among so many others. Natasha's poem "Elegy" is magnificent, I think. Again, with the father topic, and because I'm an avid fly-fisherman.
Mary Oliver, and Robinson Jeffers, and a hundred others, who understand the marvels of Nature, who infuse the Natural orders into their work are very moving to me.
There are so many, so many. Again, it is a daily enrichment, like tasty nutrition at meal times.
In addition to being a poet, you are a professor at East Central University. How has teaching and literary scholarship informed your writing practice?
To be honest, I have never been comfortable with the dichotomy of so-called "academic" poetry in contrast to "street" or self-expressive poetry. I think personal experience is so important, but it is bound to be limited. It has been a career-long effort to help student (of all ages, in college and in secondary school classes, and in workshops) to learn how to read. The notion that analysis is foreign, or prohibitive has always seemed irrelevant and misguided to me.
I think to be a really good writer, one must tap into the analytical side of their brain to inform their artistic impulses.
I did not publish a poem in a peer-reviewed journal until I was 42, and had completed a PhD. I cannot say how exactly holding a doctoral degree informs my current poetic contributions. But I know the daily wrestling with, the constant teaching of traditional poets along with contemporary poets keeps me aware. And I think awareness is the beginning of art. The trick is not to imitate or superficially emulate, but to be aware and become informed.
Also, at ECU, I have taught multiple times general education courses in "Multicultural" and also "Global" literature. This has brought a whole new academic curriculum to my scholarship as well as my artistic endeavors. The same can be said for "Ecocriticism." I'm sure that both my scholarship and my poetic attempts have contributed to each other. Sometimes, I have to remind myself not to become too expository, but I have no doubt that my abilities in the classroom inspire my own writing, given plenty of revision 😊
You also direct the annual Scissortail Creative Writing Festival. The 2026 festival occurred last month. Would you mind sharing with our readers a bit about the festival and your role in it?
I cofounded, and have directed the Scissortail Festival, held annually at ECU for 21 years, and counting. The festival has been described as a "listening" festival, and I like that. We simply select (juried) and gather 60 – 75 authors the first weekend of every April to read original work to each other. We emphasize egaltarianism, placing national book award winners alongside emerging poets. We encourage collaboration and downplay competition against each other. We function by a few guidelines, such as: "Put your ego in your pocket" or "Leave your ego at the door" and my favorite, "No assholes allowed."
Tell us about your writing practice? Do you have a favorite place or time to write?
Being an academic and a travelling poet, I have to write in seasonal rhythms, following the course of the calendar. And this tends to suit my personality and my available energy. I probably, most often, write on my back deck looking at landscape. I tend to rough things out early in the morning (but have learned to take notes at any time and anywhere I happen to be). Sunrise and sunset tend to move me. As do seasonal changes. I find meaning in shadows, in the orders of Nature, and hopefully, am getting better at joining my personal journey to universals as well as to the political and cultural challenges we all face.
I tend to scribble things in journals or on a yellow pad, and then later on the computer, start to shape those first impulses, phrases and images, into a form that might work. The challenge is to read my own hand-writing. I flunked penmanship in fourth grade, and have really never improved, probably gotten worse. 😊
Ken Hada lives in the rural Crosstimbers of central Oklahoma where his close relationship to the land inspires much of his writing. Ken’s work blends the challenges of modern society, the questions of spirituality, identity, culture and mortality with the rhythms of nature – what he calls “The Natural Self.” Eight of his collections have been named finalist for the Oklahoma Book Award. Other awards include the SCMLA Prize for Poetry, The Wrangler from the National Western Heritage Museum, among others. Information about his work may be found at kenhada.org.
You can read his poem “Song for a Friend in Summer” in the first issue of Okie Modern.
