Padam Padam: The Collected Poems

A posthumous celebration of the poet and provocateur Kevin Killian, Padam Padam pulses with camp, pop culture, and pleasure.

Kevin Killian–the puckish poet, playwright, novelist, scholar, and impresario of the Bay Area arts community–channeled the charisma of the pop stars. Pulled from his legendary corpus, and long out of print, the work collected here is the record of Killian’s life as a radical litt?rateur. In Argento Series, Killian conjures the horror, suspense, and cinematic imagery of director Dario Argento as he documents the AIDS epidemic in San Francisco. In Action Kylie, he revels in queer identity and the universal love of fandom. In Tweaky Village and Tony Greene Era, Killian elevates artists and friends to legendary status within his personal pantheon. And Elements, Killian’s wink at the periodic table, makes its U.S. debut.

The collection features an introduction by Kay Gabriel, who writes of Killian’s “fabulous, permissive body of work, charming, filthy and smarmy at turns, with its retchable milk enemas and its devilish twists.”

Author: Kevin Killian
Binding Type: Paperback
Publisher: Nightboat Books
Published: 11/04/2025
Pages: 384
Weight: 1.5lbs
Size: 8.90h x 6.00w x 1.50d
ISBN: 9781643622903
Language: English