Catching Up with Kenneth Pobo
Interview by Gabriela V. Everett & Ines Le Cannellier
Today, our editors sat down with Kenneth Pobo (“CHILD WITH DOLL,” “BATHERS”) to talk ekphrastic poetry, his beginnings as a writer, and what he’s up to now.
What got you started writing poetry?
Music. I began writing poetry at 15 on July 4, 1970. It was a hot Illinois day and our basement was cool. I decided to try writing a poem, more of a song lyric, imitating songs like “Crystal Blue Persuasion” by Tommy James and the Shondells. My first poem was called “The Open Door.” I enjoyed writing it and kept writing. It didn’t take more than a few months for me to realize that I had found a lifetime home in poetry. I’m 67 now. That makes 52 years of writing poems.
The shape both “Child with Doll” and “Bathers” take are very particular to the movement and the rhythm of your poem. Did the intention to shape the poems like this arrive after their completion or was it in your mind before both were written?
The shape of both poems was not in my head at all when I was drafting them. I often need to revise strenuously because I am inclined to say too much, not trust the reader to get it. As I revised, I was not just changing words but also how those words appear. In general, I try to write more tightly enjambed lines. I like word economy, partly because I can be too verbose. I might add that the early drafts were much longer. I had to get out my word vacuum.
The body is our vehicle to experience earth; this is acknowledged in the human bodies of “Bathers” and the doll from “Child with Doll”—do you find our connection to others and our physical home changes as we age?
I might have answered this differently at 25 than at 67. We are of the Earth/earth, mind and body. Our needs and connections change, but for me I still need love, to give love, and to be of use. I am more aware of the fragility of my current body. As that awareness grows, our Earth is getting more fragile too due to our greed and fossil fuel addiction. We see animals and plants, the seas, dying all the time.
In your poem “Bathers”, you compare the earth with an ass—an image I found very striking. What do you think led this to being the final line of the poem? What feeling did you want the poem’s readers to be left with?
I like the last lines of that poem, too! And it seemed such a strong and vital image, I wanted the poem to move toward it. I didn’t want to add anything after it, no commentary or moral of the story. Just let it be there, perhaps in a small way as Merton said, to be a “runway to contemplation.”
What was it about these particular paintings that inspired you? Were they works you often found yourself revisiting?
They were essentially new to me. I am constantly perusing my art books because other forms of art inspire me to think and write. I enjoy writing ekphrastic poems. For me, the pleasure comes not in describing what we can see but in making something new out of it. I love Frost’s line: “No surprise for the writer, no surprise for the reader.” I love when an image or a line seeps deeply inside me like Emily Dickinson’s line “After great pain, a formal feeling comes—“.
Are you working on anything exciting that you would like to share? Where can our readers find more of your work?
I’m working on many things. I have a character named Bobolinko and I hope to get enough decent poems for a book on him. I’m also working on poems based on photographs by Gregory Crewdson from his collection called Beneath The Roses. If people would like to read my recent books, there’s Lavender Fire, Lavender Rose from BrickHouse Books in 2021 and Lilac And Sawdust from Meadowlark Books, also 2021.
Kenneth Pobo is the author of twenty-one chapbooks and nine full-length collections. Recent books include Bend of Quiet (Blue Light Press), Loplop in a Red City (Circling Rivers), Uneven Steven (Assure Press), Sore Points (Finishing Line Press) Lilac and Sawdust (Meadowlark Press) and Lavender Fire, Lavender Rose (BrickHouse Books). Opening is forthcoming from Rectos Y Versos Editions. Human rights issues, especially as they relate to the LGBTQIA+ community, are also a constant presence in his work. In addition to poetry, he also writes fiction and essays. For the past thirty-plus years he taught at Widener University and retired in 2020.