Q&A with Kevin Klein, author of Loved Ones March 13 2026

The Core Virtues

Q. You organized this collection into four sections: Faith, Hope, Charity, and Love. In your introduction, you suggest that "love" is the fulfillment of "charity." How did this specific hierarchy shape which poems you chose for each section?

A. The distinction between charity and love that emerged for me as I worked on writing and classifying these poems is that charity is the divinely aided effort we make to stay in positive, meaningful relation with each other, and love is the result of that effort. Put another way, charity is planting and tending, while love is harvesting and feasting. They’re all forms of work, but charity requires more faith and hope that the seeds will grow, and love is the joyful gathering, cooking, and eating of the fruit of our labors, as it were. The poems in the “Charity” section channel grace in response to challenging events, attitudes, and people, while the poems in “Love” are ones I experienced more as moments of simple joy or poignant appreciation for what this charitable approach has produced. Looking over the list of poems in both sections as I write this, I realize a few of them could be interchangeable within the two sections, but by and large, this the distinction I was working with.       

Repentance as Perception

Q. You describe writing poetry as a "form of repentance" involving a "divineward expansion of perception." Can you share a specific moment during the writing of this book where your perception of a "loved one" shifted through the process of drafting a poem?

A. Two poems come to mind. The one that appears first in the book is “Lord of Chapel Cleaning.” Cleaning the chapel has always been an important expression of worship for me, but it isn’t for members of my family and—this will surprise no one—many other people in the ward. Working on this poem involved working through my feelings of frustration and resentment towards them for not being willing to share the load and arrive at the quiet contentment of working side by side with the Savior regardless of what anyone else does or doesn’t do.

Another poem is “Last Primary Presentation.” What feelings should I have about a young family member’s disinterest in the gospel and mistrust of the Church? The fear of “no empty chairs” has certainly prompted sincere, energetic, and often ill-timed efforts towards the spiritually distant, so this poem, as with the poem about Brigham Young, takes an imaginative approach: how might the charity I cultivate towards this person draw them back towards the Savior? What might that look like? I’m convinced that the work of salvation requires as much creativity as obedience and faithfulness. 

The Multimedia Experience

Q. Each poem in the book is accompanied by a QR code leading to videos, backstories, and technical notes. Why was it important for you to provide this "behind-the-scenes" layer rather than letting the text stand alone?

A. Two reasons: very few of the “loved ones” in my life – my family and friends who inspired many of these poems – are interested in poetry, so I wanted to offer interpretive scaffolding and audiovisual representations that could help enrich their experience with the poems. And, as an elementary teacher, I’m quite used to making complex texts more accessible and enjoyable. 

Humor and Humility

Q. In "An Invitation to the Gospels," you connect the Latin roots of humus (soil), humere (moisture), and human to both humility and humor. Why do you feel a sense of humor is a vital component of a religious life?

A. In my experience, a sense of humor is essential for humility, and to invoke the poem’s horticultural metaphor, humility is the seedbed for all other virtues. It’s impossible to overstate the role of humility in devotional life: as T.S. Eliot wrote, “The only wisdom which we can hope to acquire / Is the wisdom of humility: humility is endless.”

I’ve also long been intrigued by this statement from the theologian Reinhold Niebuhr: “The intimate relation between humour and faith is derived from the fact that both deal with the incongruities of our existence. ... Laughter is our reaction to immediate incongruities and those which do not affect us essentially. Faith is the only possible response to the ultimate incongruities of existence, which threaten the very meaning of our life.” It’s in this sense, according to Niebuhr, that “humor is a prelude to faith.” Although I would argue with him that laughter is very much a viable response to the essential, if not ultimate, incongruities of existence – and cite as evidence the case of Sarah and Isaac, whose name means “laughter,” as well as the humorous incongruities in the accounts of Jesus healing the paralytic man lowered through the roof, interacting with the woman at the well, responding to the Syrophenician woman, and engaging with Zaccheus.

The "Everyday" Sacred

Q. Many of your poems find the divine in mundane tasks—cleaning a chapel, trimming fingernails, or eating a Costco salad. How do you train yourself to see these moments as "sacred" rather than just chores?

A. The tendency to “see a World in a Grain of Sand,” to quote William Blake, is perhaps the most natural instinct of people drawn to writing poetry. We’re not trying to redefine the essential qualities of human; we just access them through concrete experience. If there’s any training in observation involved, it’s just noticing and questioning the patterns and details of the mundane – a word which means “of the world.” Right now I’m sitting in my classroom early in the morning. I can hear the low distant rush of the heating system and the higher-pitched bubbling of our class axolotl’s tank filter. What conversation could they be having right now, and how could that resonate with someone who feels embraced, misunderstood, or rejected by a loved one? I want my poems to touch on, or at least reach for, what William Faulkner called “the old verities and truths of the heart…the old universal truths lacking which any story is ephemeral and doomed – love and honor and pity and pride and compassion and sacrifice.” 

Parental Perspectives

Q. The collection is dedicated to Leah, Lexi, and Tyler. "Last Primary Presentation" and "Backyard, Mid-Winter" deal with the bittersweet reality of children growing up and pulling away. How has the "launchpad" stage of parenting influenced your recent work compared to your earlier picture books?

A. My “earlier” picture books were published when my kids were already teenagers, so that comparison isn’t significant. However, I will say that raising kids brings us face to face and heart to heart with the closeness and distance that characterize our relationships. This “launchpad” stage of parenting young adults invariably involves distance and a sense of loss, and my poetry is a means by which I integrate the inevitable mourning, so that it’s just one ingredient in the satisfying richness of my relationships with my kids, rather than an isolated clump of, say, cocoa powder that didn’t get stirred into the brownie mix all the way and hits you with bitterness when your chewing reaches it.  

Literary Influences

Q. Your poem about Oliver Granger is written "after Christopher Smart." How have poets like Smart, or perhaps the "saintly poets" in your Facebook groups, helped you find a language for your specific faith tradition?

A. For me, poetry is a vehicle, not a destination itself. It’s the finger pointing at the moon, and the moon is experiences of understanding, connection, wonder, and joy. I’m most drawn to poets like Robert Frost, who said that poetry should “begin in delight and end in wisdom.” I have very little interest in poetry that defamiliarizes language as an end rather than a means to an end. Synctatical experimentation and the collaging of odd images are indispensable tools to arrive at saying something meaningful, but for me they’re typically not meaningful in and of themselves.   

Addressing Loss

Q. Several poems, such as "Cradled" and "With Those That Mourn," touch on "unspeakable loss" and grief. What role do you believe poetry plays in the "long sigh" of human suffering?

A. The poem “With Those That Mourn” uses the Lazarus story as its metaphorical setting, and at the start of that story, Martha, Mary’s sister, says to the latecoming Jesus, “Lord, if thou hadst been here, my brother had not died.” She states her grief simply and directly, not converting it into anger at Jesus’s delay and apparent lack of appreciation for them, or shame that maybe they thought they were better friends with him than they actually were. Neither did Martha overlay it with excuses for how busy Jesus must be. She spoke her grief as purely as she could. That gift of unadorned grief doesn’t make for great poetry, which relies on images and allusions to convey raw feelings honestly, and poetry, like protest songs, can be a powerful medium for doing that.

The Provo Temple

Q. Your poem "Provo Temple Farewell" was written for the building's demolition in March 2024. As a writer in Orem, Utah, how does the physical landscape and local culture of the "Mormon Corridor" act as a character in your work?

A. I don’t know if landscape and culture are a character in my poems more than simply setting. Beside the Provo Temple, these settings include a chapel during a Saturday morning cleaning session, a backyard in between October General Conference sessions, a backyard cherry tree pruning session in winter, and a riverside in spring when cottonwood cotton is everywhere. These are simply the locations in which the poems I write can take place. 

The Reader's Takeaway

Q. You express the hope that these poems help readers "better appreciate [their] own loved ones." If a reader only takes one "melody" away from this collection, what do you hope it is?

A. To observe, listen, and express something about (often even better if towards) your loved ones that is new to you and encouraging to them.