Kilowatt fires off new poetry

For many people, the words "poetry reading" conjure thoughts of bongos, berets and boredom. Poetry can seem like a secret language reserved for the way smart, or a spew of uninteresting subject matter falling into the category of "entirely too much information." But once in a while, a poet nails it, and his or her words are like the pieces of a smashed bottle sparkling under a street lamp, reflecting fragments of life in a new way. Such is the case with the work of Milwaukee's Eddie Kilowatt.

"When people look at me strange (because I write poetry) I say something like, 'Yeah, I know, I know, but here, check this out,' and I show them something that makes them laugh their asses off," says Kilowatt, a 26-year-old writer who released a collection of work earlier this year cleverly named "Manifest Density."

It's easy to liken Kilowatt's work to the late Charles Bukowski's, and, indeed, there are similarities. Both writers are accessible, funny and crass, and both like/liked to write by the light of liquor. Kilowatt works at the Foundation and often pens poems in bars, but he definitely has a voice of his own.

Kilowatt's work goes down easily, like the proverbial cold beer on a hot day; it makes you laugh, and it makes you think. His humor, albeit crass, has an underlying vulnerability, and his honesty is astounding. In "Sleeping Dogs" he admits to being unable to perform sexually with the pleasingly alliterate line, "I still had my apologies of poor performance after Pabst." In his poem "Bad Jokes," Kilowatt makes light of venereal diseases with the line, "Everyone's got bumps in their pants," and in "Going Under The Knife" he details his experience shaving his scrotum with "It looked like one of those sphinx cats/those hairless ones/all pink and harmless looking."

Kilowatt -- who grew up in Hubertus and Germantown and currently lives in a friend's attic -- prefers to spend his cash on his creative endeavors, rather than rent. Currently, he's working on a second book, tentatively called "Carrying A Knife Into The Gun Fight." This summer, he bought a touring motorcycle, laptop, voice recorder and camping gear, and spent a month riding out East -- with a mic in his helmet -- composing and recording poems aloud while riding.

"The idea for the motorcycle trip came out of frustration. I get a lot of ideas while riding, and being unable to write them down I usually lose them by the time I get to where I'm going," says Kilowatt. "The sound quality is surprisingly good. It's got a little bit of wind noise, engine revs and ambient sound. It sounds authentic."

Kilowatt says he didn't think his idea was a reinvention of the wheel, but after doing research, realized no one else had created a book the same way. "This will be the first digitally recorded book and the goal is to provide a poet's view of our entire country as it is right now: the people I meet, pictures I take, everything from the seat of a motorcycle," he says.

Annoyed by popular culture's insistent portrayal of men as stupid, overweight couch potatoes, Kilowatt attempts to redefine the "typical" American guy with his bike-inspired book, tentatively called "American Lesion." Much of the work proves that men can think deeply and sensitively, and still be strong and gritty.

"I'm into all that sensitive sh*t. Right now I happen to be listening to Death Cab for Cutie, for God sakes," he says. "I feel like half of my poems are horror stories, slow marches to suicide missions, and the other half are the comedy that comes from tripping up the stairs."