Casey Grooten, 36, looks at poetry as an “opportunity to break whatever rules.”
“Poetry can be whatever you want it to be,” says Grooten, executive director of the Kalamazoo Poetry Festival. “It has this reputation about being inaccessible, but that’s a big part of what we do and why we do what we do at KPF. Poetry really can be for everybody. Anybody can do it beautifully.”
The annual Kalamazoo Poetry Festival will be held April 9–11 and feature keynote readers, workshops, a showcase of community poets, open mics and mixers. The theme for the weekend event is “Beyond Resilience.” KPF has also begun to offer events during the rest of the year, including workshops and open mics.
Reading and writing poetry “can be mentally healing,” Grooten says, “but we also think — and data suggests — that the study and the writing of poetry can be very, very helpful when it comes to your physical health.”
For Grooten, poetry has become a tool he uses to sort out his thinking when his mind becomes cluttered.
“I don’t know who said it, but I read once that poetry is like language with all the water wrung out of it, and that’s really powerful. I have a very active brain, and it can be hard to sort things sometimes. With poetry, I can just shut off what’s telling me that I even need to control that, and I can just let it flow.”
How did you get where you are today?
I grew up in Gobles, basically in the middle of the woods. I’ve been artistic for as long as I can remember. It started off with visual art. I drew all the time. In late middle school and in high school, I was pushed toward singing because I was born with aortic valve stenosis and had several life-saving operations before age 3, so I couldn’t do any sports past middle school. It was always the plan to have valve replacement surgery in my adult life, but because of a strep bacteria entering my bloodstream, I was diagnosed with endocarditis at age 26 and had open-heart surgery that year. In 2025 I had another surgery to replace my aortic and mitral valves and install a pacemaker.
Singing led to me writing lyrics. I started at Adrian College but left after deciding musical theater wasn’t for me. I’m a great singer, but I cannot dance. My first week at Adrian College I began using narcotics. This was fall 2008.
My first poetry class was with Chad Sweeney at Western Michigan University in fall 2009, and it really sparked everything for me. Within a year of taking that class I had become sober, had a steady job, secure housing and more secure friendships and had transitioned out of the music program and into English. I’m coming up on 15 years sober this month.
I got my degree in creative writing in 2018. That was also the year that I became part of the KPF board. I got involved with the festival by reading at the Celebration of Community Poets and was on the board of directors from 2018 until 2024. In May 2024 I was hired as the part-time executive director.
I am (also) a real estate agent with Berkshire Hathaway Homeservices Michigan Real Estate, a project manager for Issue Media Group and a writer/photographer for Second Wave Media.
For those who may be intimidated to try writing poetry, what do you recommend?
Just start with yourself. That’s an easy thing to say but honestly can be probably the most intimidating for some people.
As far as poetry practices, there’s something called ekphrastic poetry. It’s just a fancy word that means “art that represents another type of art.” It takes a piece of artwork and expands on it. So, you might see a poem written about a painting. You might see a painting that was an ekphrastic piece of art based on a film. You might even see a film based on a painting. It’s an approachable way to write a poem if you’re starting out, because a lot of the work is done for you.
Another practice to do is erasure (poetry). It’s exactly how it sounds: You can take anything — your own journal, a news article, another poem, fiction, nonfiction, whatever — and start erasing or blocking out words. Aside from looking cool when it’s done — because there are all different ways you can do erasure — you create a poem out of words that are already there.
It’s easy to get in your head and make all these rules and expectations, because we’re taught to plan everything out, right? But sometimes in poetry the easiest way to do it is just to practice shutting your brain off and letting the words come out. It doesn’t have to be perfect the first time, and it’s never going to be perfect anyway.
Why was “Beyond Resilience” chosen for this year’s festival theme?
This year we wanted to nod to how things are precarious and dangerous for a lot of people right now. We want to be on the solution-focused and uplifting end of things. A board member gave the example of when you go through something hard, people say, “Wow, you’re so strong.” And it’s like, “Yeah, thank you.” But then there’s part of you that might think, “I don’t want to have to be strong.” And then, “What comes after being strong?” A simple way to say it is: “I don’t want to survive. I want to thrive.”
We purposely try to be a bit broad with our themes, because we like people to pinpoint what it means to them. When I think “Beyond Resilience,” I think of my heart surgeries. I think goal setting, self-care, social awareness and social justice, being aware of what’s happening in the world, doing my part, doing the work, and not just being strong, but spreading that strength as much as possible in a sustainable way.
For more information on the Kalamazoo Poetry Festival, including a schedule of events for this year’s festival, visit kalamazoopoetryfestival.com.
— Interview by Jordan Bradley, edited for length and clarity
