Variant Literature’s Megan Nichols talked to author Ben Kline about winning a Lambda Literary Award for his poetry collection It Was Never Supposed to Be, published by Variant Literature in 2025 and available for purchase here.
Megan Nichols: Congratulations on winning the 2026 Lambda Literary Award for Gay Poetry! What do you remember about that night? How did it feel to hear your name called?
Ben Kline: Those two questions summon a story, so get comfortable.
When my name was called, I felt…stunned. I was not expecting it. Because, while I believe in my book and the team at Variant who did such a great job stewarding it into the world, I also understand business, especially publishing. The metrics and leverage of clicks, ads, distribution, shelf space, and attention/awareness. The support of big presses and agents, several of whom were at my table on the venue floor. I could do the math: my chances were slimmer than the runt slice of bologna at the bottom of the pack.
After the first few winners were on video, and subsequent in person winners didn’t seem shaken to the core, I thought, “Oh the winners were informed!” I started texting a friend “they already know, I’m gonna drink!” Perhaps that was naive; I’d never been to an event on the scale of the Lammys before and I’ve always thought the people at the Grammys or Oscars already know. That’s how they get them to show up! Thinking I was just here for the good time, which I was definitely having among so many friends, peers, and authors I wanted to meet, I went to the bar for a gin martini and two more very delicious and strong martinis later, they called my name.
My partner leapt up, but I placed my hands on my knees, tried to breathe, and could only think “Can I stand up right now?” I stood, hugged a couple/few people and approached the little wooden steps to the stage. Someone near them handed me a blue, bible-sized box I almost dropped, not knowing it was the actual glass award that weighs several pounds. Box secured, I waddled to the podium. I don’t remember ANY of my speech. We had been advised to write notes before the event, just in case, so I did, but they were stowed away in my bag. I recall saying something about uncles, something about libraries, maybe a bit about young queers. I think I shouted out my pal Tonya and my partner Aaron before dashing away. Someone hugged me and pointed me to the sound consoles offstage. I ended up finding a big marble tub in a back hallway and slid into for a few minutes to cry. The cold tub brought me back to reality and I remember most of the rest of the night and all the fantastic people I met. So many writers I met in person, many for the first time, and new names to discover. (I made a huge Bookshop purchase the week after the Lammys.)
The thing I remember most is the joy. Everyone was in such a good mood and happy and joyful, in stark contrast to the world. We took a lot of group photos and the smiles were irrepressible! Although NYC was pretty exciting that weekend – the Knicks winning the NBA championship, the kick off of the World Cup, the Lammys.
MN: Has your relationship to writing changed at all since winning?
BK: No. I’m still on the grind, writing and revising. Slotting my hour or two every Saturday and Sunday morning. Scribbling ideas on my lunch breaks. Juggling five manuscripts, three of which are complete and two almost. Thinking about ideas for events, such as the Jazzy Poetry hour I’m doing with some friends and musicians every few months. I’ve not changed any of my expectations or how I approach my practice.
However, I’m grateful for the acknowledgement an award of this type conveys. If it opens any doors for me, I’m cognizant to slipping some paper in the latch to ensure those doors don’t close behind me. Or better yet, using my pocket knife to unscrew the hinges and welcome more writers into the space of joy and gratitude that we are doing what we are doing in this time of AI slop, facism, and oligarchy. The prediction machines and unhappy men cannot do what we do as writers. They simply cannot. And so, we must.
MN: Has your relationship to IWNStB changed at all? Do you see the collection in a different light?
BK: Yes, but less from the Lammy than current politics.
I’ve said this to a couple of poet friends: when I was finishing IWNStB in 2021 and 2022, I really thought I was creating this sort of poetic time capsule, a parallel history about the journey from the AIDS crisis and Don’t Ask Don’t Tell to Obergefell and legal equalities, told from the perspective of person of lesser economic means who might be suspicious of progress and what it means for queer people still struggling in their day-to-day and with identity.
I could never have imagined how quickly the world would change in the global ash cloud of Project 2025 and the second T***p administration. I had read Project 2025 and it felt like a bizarre fever dream. But the regression they intended returned only a couple of weeks after IWNStB was released, a psychological and legal backslide that changed the poems from history into current events with an edited timestamp. I’ve had a few young people stop me after readings to comment on this very idea and how the book helps them see we can – we will – come to the other side of this nonsense.
MN: Does winning change your perception on awards, publishing, or ambition in writing? While watching the livestream of your win, I had this feeling of, “Oh, all that matters is the work!”.
BK: Not really. Awards are a form of recognition. Or awareness. Or assessment. Or all of those in some alchemy with good timing. Maybe I collected enough four leaf clovers and the spell worked. Maybe the right few people read my book and signal boosted. Maybe the book met its intended moment. My thought is it’s impossible to really know, so you should always say thank you and keep yourself moving. Awards are also part of publishing, same as submissions and editing, curation and formatting, etc. They boost the press as much as the author. Hence all the agents and editors who shared our table at the Lammys. It was a hoot to have them seem disinterested when I revealed I was a poetry nominee. When I returned to the table after accepting and socializing, the agents congratulated me and I replied, “Anyone interested in representing me now?”
*crickets*
The world is so quick to remind us, you know.
As for ambition in writing….hmm, well, my earliest ambitions focused on making art. I loved doodling and drawing plants. I wanted to draw comic books. Later, to write them. I wanted to write novels. I spent a lot of time convincing myself I could be a photographer. I learned a lot about photography and film and the technical aspects of creating a shot or capturing an image. I also wanted to paint. Overall, to engage in work or works that brought joy in the making and others in the partaking. After realizing I couldn’t afford photography, I studied fiction, switched to poetry later. I love its combo of music, visuals, and language. Which is to answer your question by revealing the ambition, as I’ve had it, has remained consistent and seems willing to stay aflame.
Now, were I to achieve some major prize with big money attached, I might experience a ripple in my thinking, but I don’t know. Winning a Lammy feels like a fun party where someone I have had a crush on says, “I love your outfit,” and suddenly my favorite current Madonna song bursts from the speakers and we all dance into bliss.
MN: I’m thinking of the Hegel quote, “We learn from history that we do not learn from history.” It’s disheartening and terrifying to see political and cultural backsliding, but I think your book captures reasons for hope. Look at the evidence of resilience! The reality has been that policies, cultural attitudes, and people can change for the better. Are there things, big and small, that are bringing you hope right now?
BK: There are 3 things providing me with “hopimism” these days.
- The kids detaching from technology. More of that please. Convince your parents (my fellow Gen Xrs and the elder Millennials) to do likewise. Because while I’m not anti-tech or anti-AI, (AI is just a math and analysis-of-existing-facts machine. But a poet it will never be, even if it achieves AGI. What is poetry to a know-it-all?) I think we’ve been hiding behind and between devices too long. Maybe even since the first pings pangs of AIM and Yahoo Chat. I prefer long group conversations over wine, YouTube music video nights with themed cocktails, heck, team sports, or even better, poetry readings!
- Segments of the populace maybe waking from the ten years of stupor to ask WTF. The energy they’ve been wasting on school board meetings seems to be moving to data centers and oligarchs and keeping our national forests and parks in good condition. That might end up being a false hope, but I’ve noticed the scale rebalancing the last few visits back to Appalachia and sparking in colleagues and friends who might otherwise always go on to get by.
- Madonna’s latest album, Confessions II. She’s almost 70, creating a cohesive body of work, songs relevant to our current times, to her time in a lifespan, to people of all life’s paths who understand both the individual and communal powers of dance. Like a pop music version of Sharon Olds, Carl Phillips, or [insert your favorite legend poet here], Madonna proves there’s no time stamp on engaging your creative impulses despite perceived highs and lows.
MN: Tell me more about Jazzy Poetry Hour!
BK: It’s a great new program at Junipers in Covington, KY, across the river. It’s two poets plus two jazz musicians riffing and improvising in front of a live audience. I enjoy reading my work with musical accompaniment. Especially because 75% of what I say aloud sounds banjo. Working with upright bass players, guitarists, pianists lets me hear my work in a new way and introduce new ideas for future work or possible revisions I didn’t yet realize I needed to make!
MN: Five manuscripts is insane! How do you write so much while working, and podcasting, and hosting events, and reading for Driftwood, and being a person?
BK: I’m very good at time management. I mostly write early, before work, with little crumbs of line drafts/edits at lunch. I try to devote one evening a week to keyboard time. I spend either Saturday or Sunday morning in keyboard time too, both if the weather sneezes. I wrote a lot this summer because it was too hot to enjoy the outdoors. I haven’t always been so regimented. In the years I worked second shift, I was a late night writer, 12-2am. Oddly enough, the extra time I had during the 2020 pandemic year gave me space to figure out how best to write without writing all the time.
Also, Google finally made the Keep app usable and easier to integrate with Drive/Docs.
MN: What have you been reading lately?
BK: Here’s some of the titles and journals/publications I’ve been enjoying lately:
- All That Teethes Within by Kari Gunter Seymour
- Villain Era
- Murmuration Archives by Felicia Zamora
- Queer-Poem-a-Day edited by Mickie Kennedy and Josh Tvrdy
- Orange by Noel Quinones
- & Changes, edited and published by Kevin Bertolero
- Be Gay, Do Crime: Everyday Acts of Queer Resistance and Rebellion, edited by Zane McNeill, Riley Clare Valentine, and Blue Buchanan
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Ben Kline lives in Cincinnati, Ohio. A poet, information professional, and one of the team behind the University of Cincinnati Libraries POETRY STACKED series, Ben is the author of Twang (ELJ Editions) and Stiff Wrist (fourteen poems), as well as the 2026 Lambda Literary Award-winning collection It Was Never Supposed to Be (Variant Literature.) His work has appeared in Copper Nickel, Florida Review, Palette Poetry, Hayden’s Ferry Review, DIAGRAM, and other publications.
Megan Nichols is the Managing Editor of Variant Literature.