Just Kibbe with Wess
Just Kibbe is one of the most adventurous, lively, and experimental writers I know, and we are missing him in Southern California. I wrote to him for an update and I am happy to present this report and sample of his current life and work.
Kathabela Wilson
I spend 10-12 days each month in New Mexico, and the rest of my time in Sonoma, CA. traveling…by bus, plane, car (and the occasional train) means I travel light. The writing had mostly stopped, until I figured out a new method.
Basically I jot down ideas using the Notes App on my cell phone – whenever an idea pops up. Sometimes this means speaking into the phone while driving and letting Siri take notes for me, sometimes accurately, sometimes not…and then once a month or when I find the time and peace of mind I sit (on a plane or in a crowded place where nobody knows me so they won’t bug me) and move the ideas and words around into a series of “Edgely” poems. Narrative character mini dramas.Edgely slips
hammers into letterslistens
for the nails
to be driven
homePapa raises a fist
at the end
of the rainbowUp sprout
little wild geeseMother spits
the spittoon full
with fingernailsOut of their ears
pours
yellow
corn
milkEdgely is not a new character, and this too will be part of my ongoing “curing the pirate pig” fictional archeology/anthrapology project.
I’m currently reading two books: “In the Realms of the Unreal: Insane Writings” edited by John G. H. Oakes and Henry Miller’s “Big Sur and the Oranges of Hieronymus Bosch”
my life now is lots of work, and I am hoping for a winter of creative productivity in both writing and woodburning. we will see. My other time is spent (when not working growing/managing a Roof Restoration company) playing with horses, and walking dogs,
Just Kibbe
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Just Kibbe with Kathabela Wilson.
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
Just Kibbe in front of a painting by Susan Dobay
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
Just Kibbe (kneeling) with Kathabela and Rick Wilson at Boston Court in the Figures of Humor and Strange Beauty production directed and hosted by Just.
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.
One encounters so few original voices these days – Justin is one. I will read/listen/view anything he creates. I’m glad to get news of him from afar and wish him well!