Levi the Poet | The Mouth, The Man
By Jameson Ketchum

It’s been awhile since we’ve seen a new record from you. What have you been doing since Werewolves?

Levi the Poet: (Laughs) Yeah, it has been way too long. Praise God that, for the sake of my sanity, I have finally got some new material. I’ve been doing a lot of things since Werewolves. Some of them things that pertain to Levi The Poet, and some of them things that do not. It’s been nearly three years since I burned my first EP of that record and went out on the road with In The Midst Of Lions – I can’t believe how the time flies (and I always thought my grandma was lying when she warned me that it would!)

I’ve been touring a lot. I wish I was organized enough to have a count of the days, but it’s been as full-time as possible since summer of ’09. The Lord has been so good and proven Himself so faithful to provide for me over the years, and it’s all grace and undeserved kindness from the hands and homes and meals and money and prayer of people who have believed in what Jesus could do through what really is such a silly project. (You what? You yell and make people feel uncomfortable for a living?)

Honestly, I wanted to have more than an EP out by now, but life threw my family and I for a whirlwind this year. After years of back pain and bi-polar depressive/anxiety disorder, months of attempted suicides and ins-and-outs of hospitals that began last November, my dad killed himself at the beginning of January (which I mention purposefully, as it pertains to Monologues). Two months later, I got married to my wife Brandi, and immediately after the honeymoon, we moved into a 35 foot RV with the band White Collar Sideshow, as Brandi had joined up with them to play keyboard as their new gas-masked member (a season in our life which just ended, as a matter of fact). We’ve literally been home for just over a month of off time since our wedding at the beginning of April, so it is nice to be back home for the holidays, even though this new chapter in our life is bit foggy. I think that if there’s anything I’ve been learning or praying over Brandi and I in the last year, it is that Jesus would be our identity. It’s the only thing that makes sense – it’s the only joy that I see lasting. In a year and a life where everything is changing, Jesus is the only person who offers consistency and solidarity, and that is a beautiful thing.

You had those first poems since you were very young. How have you seen yourself grow as a writer and performer in the last few years?

LTP: It goes without saying that I am older now, and although I absolutely love all of the poems that I have released thus far (how could I not, they are my life!), I’m in a different place, experiencing different things, living a different life. I mean, I wrote the poems for Werewolves while I lived in or just after I had moved out of my parent’s house. Now I’m married, have lived on my own for coming up on six years, have become a member of a church again (after all of the bitterness which begged for healing that anyone could discern from “The Bride”), and, by the grace of God, have built relationships all over the country. Jesus has taken away much of the despair that prevailed over Werewolves and given me a confident joy in His sovereign direction of my life and, in hindsight, I can thank Him for all of the crap that I wrote about in Werewolves, because He has faithfully fulfilled His promise to “use for good what the enemy intended for evil” in my life, and in the lives of others. As far as growth as a writer and performer, he has opened up opportunities for me to begin and/or continue freelance work for various publications or organizations, to speak or perform in new places all of the time, and to provide for my new wife.

I think that in all of that, though, the most noticeable change has been my reasoning for the delight that He has accomplished those things in my life: namely, that he would use this passion as a missional endeavor more than it ever was in the past. Levi The Poet began as a way for me to share my art, a way for me to stand on a stage, or something – and maybe not even consciously – but I also don’t think that it was consciously all about Jesus, either. I feel like, because of the nature of things that I have written about, the Lord has used LTP to be much more about glorifying Him than me, and if LTP’s popularity grows, great – there’s nothing wrong with popularity – but hopefully it will be great because it means that Jesus’ fame is spreading. At least, that is my desire. We could get into the semantics of how no motive is truly pure or whatever, but it is, at least, my deepest desire that Christ would be glorified through my art, regardless of what other creeping selfishness may slither in from time to time. So in reference to growth as an artist, I hope that it will be more and more recognizable that Jesus is the foundational building block of whatever it may be that I compose and release.

What inspiration went into Monologues? Since your last album you’ve toured a lot more and gotten married. How have these factors played into what you write now?

LTP: Usually I hate these “inspiration” questions, but I think that, for once, I can be pretty specific: tour, compartmentalization, sexual sin, a fantastic journal that I read by one of my favorite writers, my father and my family, and the gospel of Jesus Christ. That’s what the five tracks on the EP are about. They are five of my favorite poems that I have ever written.

Brandi and I are still trying to figure out exactly what tour’s love / hate relationship with marriage is going to look like in our lives, but the short version of the answer is that: yes, both factors have played into more recent writings (although I’m not sure that they will be entirely noticeable to people on this EP – you’ll probably see a lot more of that on the full length – which is written as well, by the way).

We both feel strongly that the Lord is not done with Levi The Poet, whatever it may develop into as we continue to move forward. I am so blessed to be married to a person who is both a Godly woman and a supportive wife. Honestly, if it weren’t for Brandi’s influence at the very beginning of this project, I would have probably never started in the first place, and certainly wouldn’t have continued as our love for one another grew stronger, and our time apart grew more difficult. It has been an enormous gift to me, personally, that the Lord allowed Brandi to see a glimpse of what he is accomplishing through the mouth of this fool during the months that we have spent together on the road this year. Brandi has been and will continue to be an active participant in Levi The Poet from here on out. I’m not saying anything about what that looks like, but she is so gifted – creatively, organizationally and administratively – in ways that I am not, and has lifted monumental loads of stress and anxiety off of this little poet’s shoulders over the years. It is my hope and prayer that Levi The Poet will not longer be referred to as “mine”, but as “ours” – not as “his”, but as “theirs”.

You touched on this a bit but what can fans expect as far as themes on this EP? More “taboo” topics?

LTP: Thematically, Monologues is heavy (as per what was probably expected from anyone who cares). It deals with the problem of sin, and that is always heavy (or should be). “Kaleidoscope” is a poem that has been out for awhile now, for example, which is about a prostitute whose father raped her and whose mother neglected her – a woman who has lost even the hope of faith in something other than her daughter, but feels so ugly and responsible for the sins committed against her in the past that she continues the legacy as a prostitute stuck in the lie that penance will somehow fill her emptiness. Another track is about a relationship which devastated one of my best friends, who viewed her lover as her functional savior, and digressed into his every wicked desire while he treated her as nothing more than an object of his gratification. Another track is, essentially, a letter that I wrote to my father before he died, begging him not to give up on life, and seeking to remind him of the history that Jesus is ultimately working into his redemptive end.

Now, as far as whether those things are taboo or not…? I don’t know. I think that I’ve watched a lot of things that used to be “uncomfortable” topics exposed in the light over the last couple of years – but I also think that many of them have become too comfortable. Porn used to be the thing that nobody talked about – now everybody talks about porn. Accountability this and accountability that – which is fantastic, and anyone that knows me knows that I will always encourage accountability, and am an active participant in XXXChurch.com and things like that. But if it’s all so normal that everyone’s talking about it because everyone’s doing it and your confession doesn’t lead to active repentance, then I don’t see that accomplishing much. I guess the point I’m making is that we should seek to be real people that aren’t afraid of the dark, but people that also don’t seek to minimize the devastation of the darkness.

I guess that is what I’ve sought to do: be realistic – even, if necessary, to the point of risking backlash for the sake of exposing sin for what it is: an insurrection against our King. But don’t end or stop in the pits of despair, because Jesus Christ is our ultimate, redemptive hope. John MacArthur has said that the grace of God means so overwhelmingly much more to us in light of the wrath that we deserve. I love that. The last track on the album is all about the good news of Jesus Christ, and his personal love relationship with his bride – individually and corporately. It is, in essence, the gospel account of Luke rewritten in performance prose. I’m really excited to have been able to include liner notes for the tracks on this album, as well – simply put, the liner notes make the album. They complete and explain the stories.

You’ve said it yourself that spoken word poetry can be hard to watch be performed. For those who haven’t experienced your live show, what can you say that will entice the skeptics?

LTP: Well, I can tell you that, more often than not, I hate poetry, and I don’t particularly enjoy everything that I have seen in my short 22 years of breathing in air, and so if you feel like I do – I try to do the opposite of that!

No, on a serious note, there are some fantastic artists out there doing the same type of thing that I absolutely love and enjoy and even find myself jealous of, at times. But I know that it is a niche market. I know that poetry wasn’t the most marketable choice of artistic expression that I could have come to, and I know that it can be unbelievably uncomfortable to sit through – and that’s without the sole purpose of some artists deliberating seeking to make things uncomfortable, like I’m prone to do! I’m going to be putting out a video that I’m really excited about in the near future that I shot for a poem called “Memories” – the gospel poem – and you can get a glimpse of it there.

I’ll also say that sometimes skeptics are just made up of people who are stubborn and don’t look at anything objectively. For instance, when I post a video, and someone else immediately gets online and says (inevitably), “This kid is stupid, he’s just copying Listener” – I don’t really feel like that person has given me much of an objective chance – or vice versa. He probably just really loves Dan and Chris and hates the way that I breathe or something. But I laugh when I read stuff like that, because, guess what? I love Dan and Chris, too! And I love Bradley Hathaway! And we’re all friends! Woah, holy crap, right?! Life shouldn’t be a competition, and too often, it is (and, if I’m honest, sometimes I fall guilty of making it so). But we’re all just people doing what we do, and, oh my goodness, we even like one another! If you dig it, cool. If not, cool. I don’t dig a lot of artists, but that doesn’t revoke what they’re doing as illegitimate. The anonymity of the internet has made savage beasts out of critics, and it’s a sad thing.

Recently you announced your Levi the Poet project will be released via Come & Live! What sparked this interest and how do you see yourself fitting in there?

LTP: I am releasing this EP as a part of Come&Live! – yeah, and you’ll have probably presumed by now based upon the earlier bits of the interview why that is so. I’ve known Chad since he was still at Tooth&Nail Records – he’s been a close friend and an active prayer warrior for and throughout the last five years of my family’s life. It has been exciting to watch the Lord mold and transform and sanctify the vision that he gave Chad for his family and future so long ago. I hold the utmost respect for that man, and stand dumbstruck, at times, at what the Lord has accomplished out of the outlandish idea that C&L! was (and, frankly, remains).

My partnership with them went undecided for quite a while and, for a while, if I’m honest, I wasn’t sure that I wanted to partner with them at all. I’ve been very up-front with Chad about this and so I feel like I can be here, as well, but I believe that good art is worth something. I legitimately get excited about saving fifteen bucks to go to the store and purchase my favorite band’s new record when it hits the shelves. It is a bit of a frightening thing, at times – and maybe even a bit of a turnoff, as well – that people can just take an artist’s hard work, free of charge, without much of what would appear to be any appreciation, at all. However, that very same thing also fascinates me to no end – because, by industry standards, I can’t think of something that better models the same (although on a much smaller scale than His) unprecedented and undeserved love of Christ that is offered us, free of charge. Maybe it will continue in that vein, maybe something will shift or be reevaluated in the future, but I know that for now, with the Lord’s molding and shaping my wife and I, having given us more of a heart for the mission of Jesus, with much prayer and conversation, we decided that it makes sense to partner with Come&Live! – whose core mission is also the proclamation of Jesus’ name.

Thinking practically, as well, it is my prayer that having organizational backing would somewhat legitimize Levi The Poet more than continuing as a solely independent artist. Brandi and I are able to receive donor support through a non-profit organization now, which means tax intensive in the form of write-offs – which I hope will prove to be a blessing for us, our supporters, and the Come&Live! family as a whole. It is a step of faith, to be sure – one that I am equally nervous as excited about, but I am so thankful that the Lord has chipped away at a my sense of ownership and entitlement to LTP through this, as well. I can proclaim all day long that nothing is mine and that everything is Christ’s that He simply shares with me – but walking in that has been a different thing entirely, complete with the growing pains that accompany any forward progression or sanctification.

I love everyone at Come&Live! and I know that the Lord will accomplish what He set out to through this – and that is an exciting thing, one which I am humbled to be called a participant of.

Thank you for talking with us. Any last words?

LTP: Heck no, I’m way too long-winded already. Love you, though.