Corpus Omphalos.com
About:
the Author
"Corpus
Omphalos" Metaphysical Poetry by
M. E. Kibler
Aside from what she calls painting spaces, where rather large stretched
canvases are mounted and in varying stages of being painted, not to
mention all sorts of canvases and stretchers here 'n there, her studio is wall-to-wall bookshelves jam-packed with books and various journals and publications,
from first editions to private small press pubs on every subject
imaginable.
"My library is smaller now
than it has been at times; and I tend to give books away. I'm not really a
collector, per se; I read a lot because I'm curious."
That's the understatement of
the century. And there's file cabinets crammed full of
research and manuscripts she won't talk about except to say it's 'works in
progress'. Her collections include "The Lion and The Unicorn" (ancient world history
articles),
"Universe" (poetry), "The Tao of Being" (metaphysical true tales),
"Horror Factor" (yes, horror short stories), and "Offline" (sci-fi
short stories). She also ran an underground press publishing poetry, short
story, and essay collections by various authors. Her works are all privately published and
reside in private collections.
"Just a circle of friends,"
she says, while pouring me a cup of green tea.
"This is Dragonwell, one of my
favorites...do you know what a dragon well is?"
"No," I replied.
I
had arrived at
the poet's studio, got past the two lion dogs guarding the front garden
gate, had just begun my interview with M. E. Kibler, and was sitting at a
long wooden table in the middle of a stone castle mead hall. I sipped the
tea. The stained glass arched window over the double doors was shimmering
prismed light across the angel children flying above me.
"An artesian in a
cave," she says. "There are innumerable circles of friends who share their music,
paintings,
writings, hobbies, ideas, inventions. It might not surprise you to realize
how much music, for example, is produced the world
over. It's personal...a lifestyle...part of ongoing human society as a
whole, an element of all human cultures. The Underground is universal and
generates a
massive body of knowledge and works. The Internet had made possible an
incredible advent of public dissemination, and that's changing a lot of
things."
When I asked her why she was
putting this poetry online, she replied she thought it might be of
interest and was contributing this collection to the Gothage Reading Room,
saying that not everything she writes might be as fitting for literary
discussion.
I
definitely found the Corpus Omphalos poetry of interest and refreshing.
Unique. And literary. 108 is a Kung, a dedication, a completed work. It is a substantial
collection.
The play on words is always
active. In brief, any of this collection could exemplify observation
concerning language, diction, rhetorical ploys for any piece. The
collection has focused execution, a consistency throughout while each poem
is a complete work in itself of singular intent. No two are alike. In so
many ways, a formal analysis defies space.
Imagery and analogy, speaker,
meter, literal meaning and figurative? Here's one. Number 036,
entitled "Abstinence"
to
Some
poems are capsulated gems of wit:
"Is the
wisdom of the world of the world or of wisdom?" (Wisdom)
"Sometimes finding something I've lost is the same as forgetting I don't
know where it is." (Sometimes)
Some
poems are rather obscure:
"Being in a brain is
not so strange as it is to think about Being." (Being)
"Subversion: mutual
regret when putting away neglect leaves nothing to contemplate." (Subversion)
"Pavilion" was one I
had written down in my notes to ask Kibler about, having read the
collection on eBook several times before the interview. She said it is, as
it seems to be, a description of an event and was written in protest
against the city's practice of killing pigeons
and other birds by feeding them poisonous seed.
Some are whimsical,
like "Zeno":
we
The meter
is lyrical, has cadence, but not fit to a compulsory form; it's part of
her art in smithing poetic expression. The meter 'is' the poem just as
much as the graphics, concepts, and arrangement of words are the poem.
Rolls easy off the tongue and smooth on the mind. The poetry was audible
in my head when I read it and prompted me to read the poems out loud,
realizing that's part of it too. In black 'n white, the poem is a picture,
most often bottles and flasks, alchemic, and are transparent in their
graphic environment, like glass. Some poems are ballads about real events,
short ballads, like "Our Lady of the Sky" and "'Twas". Some poems are very
cryptic, like "Crane". I agree that her style is exemplified with the
title work for the eBook "One God Per Pot":
One God
Per Pot.
She commented on this
collection as, "Short snaps, thoughts really, and the artwork is
unusual. Whereas poetry is completely intuitive, the things
I talk about aren't so obscure anymore...more and more people are tapping into the
collective awareness. I think the light-hearted humor and, well,
aesthetics in expression, and in unexpected ways, will find appreciation."
Every poem is full of poignant
lines. Here's some of the expressions:
....immersion in private
devotions tempers slumber to the keenest of notions.... (Proem)
....prophets living visions
become fair warning how well madness can perform....(Apocalypsed)
....moving 'round, pageant
fluency, embracing in the supple spirit strength of sage
tranquility....(Mantra)
....brewery of black-topped,
mirror-scaped insanity....(Axis Oasis)
....river deep as ebony,
noises of its own, ribbons of a remedy and rhapsodies of home....(Jetty)
"If you see a book you'd like,
you can have it," she said.
I was strolling down an aisle
of books, head cranked to one side, scanning titles in the astronomy
section next to the tree--yes, there's a huge Benjamin fiscus
inside, and overhead looms a large bronze statue of a monkey dressed in
some sort of costume with....
"The Monkey
King," she says.
Of course.
The collection of 108 poems
that make up the "Corpus Omphalos" collection were selected by Kibler
as having a similar spirit.
""Austere" is the word that
comes to mind. Most of these selections are from times when experimenting with boiling a dissertation down to a few
lines, a minimum of words, is what I was after.
"The meanings conveyed are
really metaphysical, and by 'metaphysical' I mean the choice of words,
organization of the language and verse is all about layers of connection/understanding that happens,
visually and cognitively, when the work of art, the poem, is experienced. The amount of
information behind each expression is actually quite immense and the
multiplicity
of implication realized by a reader is an expression of the individual. At surface value, they serve as axioms of a sort...simple,
obvious truths we all know but haven't said, heard, or read said in quite the ways I have
presented and used words. My relationship with language is rather
visual. I'm more of a visual artist than anything else. Even music is a
visual experience for me. Could say it's psychically interactive poetry.
Metaphysical.
The artwork
accompanying each poem is the result of a irresistibly interesting
tropical rain forest vine that volunteered growing outside by my front
door...and I live in the Sonora desert! The fact that it existed as it did was
quite impossible yet there it was. That's exactly the way I like
it. It's a commonly known plant,
this heart-shaped leaf philodendron, that people bring
home from the nursery to live with them, but this one came to live with me. Close examination
revealed nothing less than the fascinating art of nature and profound
uniqueness of this life-form."
We wound-up the interview
after meandering through a labyrinth of shelves full of music books and
hundreds, maybe thousands, of CDs to lounge on a couch in the music studio
and listened to some
really incredible tracks a band who practices there recorded.
"I published a
book a few years ago of ultimate poetry," she said, and left the music
room. She returned with a white book and handed it to me.
The cover
graphic is a gray-scale photograph of a small pile of oblong grains.
The title?
"Nuclear
Rice".
I opened the
book.
All the pages
were blank.
I knew exactly
what that meant.
Guess which book I took home.
GP
Copyright © 2005-present
Poetry
Review
Gothage Press,
July 2005
"Corpus Omphalos: Metaphysical Poetry
Collection" by M. E. Kibler
Gustav Mundi
(Article
reviewing the poetry with excerpts from Gothage interview with poet)
keep
uncanny
creatures
from the threshold
ascetics conjure up
infertile ploys
determining
abstinence
a stronghold
while nature
provides fruit
of fertile joys;
what diet could
such stringent
laws require
excluding that which
works against the grain
to forfeiting natural desire
demanding bawdy fluids to retain
for all food comes from seed and sire
infusing lust in us for much the same
and prompts my curious nature to inquire
one must feed on bits of sand
to fairly claim
adherence to what practices conspire
will conduct this alchemical refrain
stood
conversing
watching from
beyond the humid
swamps where bamboo
bends sweep river banks and
yard birds will the world into being
Some say
there's not;
a few profess
there must be many,
less confess there aren't any;
others refuse to admit they're confused,
most often assume to presume as they choose;
The ancient Egyptians wrote: one god per pot,
which is, I propose, all the room the pot's got.