One guiding theme of Kinward podcast is an inquiry into what feels possible, or not, for our moment and futures, based on the kinds of stories we tell. And this is one reason I wanted to speak to Joe Wilkins.
Joe grew up “father-haunted” in the “Big Dry” of Eastern Montana. He’s a father himself, a writer, a gardener, and a very adept unpacker of two interlinked sets of stories: mythologies of the American West, and stories about men and masculinity. His memoir The Mountain and the Fathers, two novels, and four books of poems invite inhabitations and expansions of these saturated themes, while committing deeply to the agency and guidance of the land, which he calls “our root and measure.”
We sat down for this interview in person in my hometown of La Grande, Oregon. As our conversation roamed the fraught personal and political territories of the West, and the consequences of our layered histories here—for men and boys, for the land, for those of us who feel a little different, for all of us—Joe kept circling back to something he knows for sure: we need stories, and we can cultivate the discernment to know when the stories we’ve gotten comfortable with are no longer serving. We need to find the old stories, the new stories, the different stories, the more stories about who we are, and who we can be together.
I hope you enjoy this rich conversation. For more, check out Joe’s Notes From the Journey Westward on Substack and/or get ye to the bookstore or your local library and read one or more of his books (they’re all good). Maybe you can even catch a tour date; Joe’s still out and about with The Entire Sky—reading, listening, and lifting pints with old and new friends.
For more from Kinward, follow us on Instagram @Kinward_ Moves and subscribe at kinwardmoves.substack.com.
