KEVIN FOOTE
Kevin Foote (he/him) is a writer, teacher, and explorer. He was born and raised on The Central Coast of California, but now calls Green Mountain his home. When he’s not in class with his students, he loves investigating restaurants in the Denver region, trail running, and inviting friends and followers into the writing process online and in poetry slams. Kevin’s first collection, Cabin Pressure, is a work full of the woe and wonder of teaching, the unsung moments of victory in mental health struggles, and the unabashed joy of experiencing the natural world along The Front Range. You can see his published poems and works in progress on @feastsonfoote
BOOKS
Cabin Pressure // South Broadway Press
ONLINE PUBLICATIONS
Hoppin’ Lowrider Has Him Mile High // South Broadway Press
Warren // Mulberry Literary
Q // Twenty Bellow Literary
Dispatch 1: Teresita & The Elephant // South Broadway Press
JOURNALISM
Articles on Food & Dining // Westword Magazine
Articles on Food & Dining // DiningOut Denver
ONLINE APPEARANCES
‘Cabin Pressure’ explores world from a teacher’s perspective // Littleton Independent
Grinding Teeth: A Podcast About the Creative Journey ft. Kevin Foote
Interview with Kevin Foote // Arte Realizzata
Meet Kevin Foote // Shoutout Colorado
Books Launching in July 2025 // CLMP
AUTHOR INTERVIEW
South Broadway Press interviewed Kevin Foote to get to know the author of Cabin Pressure a little better.
SBP: WHAT IS FUELING YOUR CREATIVITY RIGHT NOW? WHERE DO YOU FEEL AT YOUR MOST CREATIVE?
KF: Healthy relationships are fueling my current state of creativity. Spending time with folks who think deeply and critically but have zero interest in making poetry. Spending time with deeply dedicated poets but we’re playing games. Growing closer to colleagues in our work and then going about our respective lives without exchanging numbers or social media. They are all forms of community that writers like me really need. Don’t get me wrong: there are times I really prioritize the power of silent alone time, but too much of that and I become my own echo chamber and then I suffer for it. I’ve noticed my creativity heightened and writing enriched when I nurture my healthy relationships, from professional to intimate. I’m in that season of life.
SBP: WHAT MADE YOU FALL IN LOVE WITH POETRY?
KF: As a kid, I simply thought that’s how the world functioned and was how most folks conveyed themselves, that communication eventually would eventually have rhythm and meter or at least figurative language and imagery, like the musicians, teachers, pastors, and writers who made up my family and friends. I don’t think I would say I was in love with poetry until I was a newer teacher in my twenties, but before coming out and while I was navigating agnosticism-turned-atheism. It was around that time that I realized what poetry was doing that no other form of writing could do for me at that time. On top of that, seeing that “a-ha!”/“holy shit what is THIS I’m feeling/dang this is way more fun than an essay!” looks on my students’ faces when we created poetry only deepened that love.
SBP: WHO DO YOU HOPE FINDS YOUR POETRY? WHO IS YOUR ART FOR?
KF: Those feeling poetry isn’t what they read normally, those who feel they’re unsure how to convey the feelings of leaving a life and making a new one. Those who are ready to feel uncomfortable, and understand poetry does exactly that. Those who are at rock bottom and need to see hope, guarded and honest and fragile, but still hope.
SBP: IF YOUR WRITING WERE A KEY, WHAT DOOR WOULD IT UNLOCK, AND WHAT WOULD YOUR READERS FIND ON THE OTHER SIDE?
KF: They’d find stacks of the biggest California strawberries they’d ever see beside piles of pits from mealy Colorado peaches, vape pens, and mascara brushes. They’d find a mirror, they’d find a tv on mute. They’d find adults in their lives they wish could finally tell to fuck off, and others they could finally hug and say “I am so sorry. You were right.”
SBP: WHAT POEM IN YOUR BOOK WENT TO A PLACE YOU WEREN’T EXPECTING, OR WHICH WAS THE MOST/LEAST CHALLENGING TO WRITE?
KF: I do think the title poem [Cabin Pressure] went somewhere I was not expecting, while also being one of the least challenging. It was a very turbulent plane, the kind that gave folks on my flight heebie jeebies and others motion sick, and amidst it I had that moment we have to be ready for as writers–being open and observant. My moment involved the little girl and parent a few rows ahead of me, and she was being so kind and adventurous during it all the discomfort, and the poem flowed out of me, no doubt in my mind what I wanted to say even though I never formed it that way before.
SBP: WHAT HAS BROUGHT YOU JOY THIS LAST YEAR?
KF: Safety, healing, hilarity, hope. I see so many doors opening up in my life from the personal to professional and I am so joyful for that. It’s not an ecstatic/dramatic, slow-motion running on the beach scene from Chariots of Fire. It’s a quieter feeling, like being by the creek and needing nothing, that kind of expression of joy.
SBP: WHAT IS YOUR CURRENT OBSESSION?
KF: A three-way tie: My nails by @nail_lockett in my school colors (blue-green hombre, cat eye, almond shaped short. Also, my tattoos by @hailstormtattoos, which are my friends’ DnD characters on my arm and soon will include my students’ artwork! Lastly, I don’t watch any streaming services really, save for Dimension 20 on Dropout TV, and all the things from Critical Role. These shows are about so much more than mindless binging. You’re watching best friends grow together over collaborative storytelling, and I need that.
SBP: WHAT MAKES SOMETHING HARD TO WRITE OR CREATE?
KF: The discombobulating sensations that my ego can create when I do not ground myself in realistic expectations over how to utilize and enjoy the time I have. I work 45 hours minimum at school, and when the Speech & Debate season begins and we begin traveling around the state for tournaments, I work another 8-12 hours every Saturday until mid-March. When I remind myself to do some simple exposures to the worst case scenarios, I just have a blast and get into the creative space exactly where I am, and I get to honor the “old shit” and “unpolished shit” as they are!
SBP: WHAT IS THE VALUE OF WRITING AND ART IN THE CURRENT STATE OF THE WORLD?
KF: Writing with the intent to be art–whether poetry or code or any other form–is hope in the dying light. That hope has life skills bound up within it, that many will wish they took seriously, before the irrevocable harms of the current state of the world—bureaucratic recidivism, Christian nationalism, oligarchic parasitism, and social media-induced flattening of hard thinking—are fully experienced. Writing and art may be all we have left to navigate it all. I know it’s what helped me literally survive, and I hope it can have that power for them, if it comes to that.
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