An interview with Just Kibbe, poet, artist, community organizer, teacher, experimentalist.
By Kathabela Wilson
A telescope on the artist
How do you see the artist in the world, what can he/she give, and how do you see yourself doing that?
Poets observe. Poets absorb. We live, and our living is no different from the life of flora and other fauna. A flower does not choose its color, its scent, or its size. Neither does a poet. All I aspire to is living comfortably with what I am, and to be what I am – poet, human, carbon life form. The diversity of poets is exciting. I’d like to see a Field Guide of Poets: size, habits, habitats, that sort of thing. It might help the others, the “non-poets” understand what it is we’re about.
A microscope on the poet
What are interior qualities of your poetic life, what makes you a poet?
Turmoil. Simultaneous concern and apathy for the state of the world.
Progress is movement in one direction; there is no guarantee it’s for the better. I care about communication: who, what, where, how, when, why. Poets are detectives with an obsession with language.
Assuming alternative perspectives is a habit of mine. Perceiving the world from competing perspectives challenges my definition of a better world. I want a better world, but I’m lost. I do not know what that even looks like, but poetry is how I try to find it.
Mapping the poet
How is place, where you live especially, a force in
your poetry? Importance? How does Pasadena color, and influence, your work?
Mark my words. I am marking my territory. With each poem, I claim
something as mine. Staking a claim is just the beginning. Will I fight
for it? Will I ‘win’?
People are born of the land. The land determines occupation and avocation. What we do (what we must do to survive) determines who we are, and what our children will become. I’d like a map to accompany the Field Guide of Poets so a closer study can be made of poets in and out of their place.
Multimedia/microphone and the Poet
How do you like to do it?
I’m a visual poet. I have map poems, flow-chart poems, diagram
poems, 3D poems. My thoughts are within a space; my poems are an
attempt to map them, to place them in some context to the world.
Pasadena’s acceptance and promotion of diverse artistic traditions
has allowed me to accept more of the artistic impulses that rise to my
surface and request and audience.
This Farrowed World
by Just Kibbe
As inculpable of love
as of labor, time struck space
fall pregnant into the abyss
her gaping wombs of fire
the lacerations of passion
his penetrating kisses
nine needle pink-toothed
swine crawl from her vulva.
Oriented without a stink
to her milkyway, their maws
latch on, wishing on stars
shooting forth from her teats.
One bite leads to another–
the colostrum taints pink
–eventually it is her turn.
Hungry as she is
the first four churn her belly
like butter. The rooster crows
a clot red rage, and the wolving
action of her jaws consume
three boars. The runt is done,
in her youth. A shotgun orbits
welcoming the big bang
and gravity into her skull.
From out of her mouth
I speak with my grief intact
“You cannot prevent in a lifetime
what I began three months
three weeks and three days ago.
If in twenty-two days
your land remains fallow
language will descend upon you
fertilize your life, sacrifice your first born
and leave you babbling sweet
nothings to the white-tailed deer.
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! Learn more about Just Kibbe by going to his website.
Vision , search for answers should be the MIDLE name of Just Kibbe.
His unique VISUAL POETRY expressed in different mediums are challenging for the mind , and gives a chance the soul too, to grow .
Beautiful comment Susan, and Just is another artist your magnetic eye — pulled into your gallery to be highlighted and strongly appreciated. Thank you for Scenic Drive Gallery. And yes, for appreciating the challenging and experimental in all the arts.