Self Storage by Dobby Gibson
| By Bethany Onsgard |
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ABOUT THE ARTIST
This month we commissioned the work of Dobby Gibson, a Minneapolis-based poet whose two collections, Polar, and the recently released Skirmish, read like maps of a new kind of
Midwestern verse in which old Minnesota motifs—cold weather, Scandinavian stoicism—are made fresh.
“Being a poet just means being a certain kind of listener,” explains Gibson, who transforms snippets remembered from dreams and words misspoken at the dinner table into art that’s empathetic, yet inward and Wallace Stevens-inspired. The result is poetry that makes everyday moments lyrical and creates witty backdrops out of ordinary places.
Gibson credits much of his work to a need for productivity during the long Minnesota winters. “It’s cold and it’s dark,” he explains, “and I think my seasonal affective disorder comes through.”
The former novelist had never considered poetry until he was handed a copy of The Selected Poems of Frank O’Hara in graduate school. “That book kind of blew my mind,” he recalls. Lucky for us, he left plotlines behind for the shorter, free-form style present in his current work. “Poetry feels entirely necessary to me,” he says. “Like eating…or baking bread.”
DOBBY’S INSPIRATION FOR “SELF STORAGE”
“I was driving down Hiawatha Ave. and saw an orange “Self Storage” sign. I simply read the sign in this other, more interesting way, something I do often with billboards and road signs—partly to stave off boredom, partly to subvert received messaging. What a hilariously impossible concept, I thought, to attempt to store one’s own self! I instantly thought of Marcel Duchamp’s 1916 ready-made ‘With Hidden Noise,’ the famous, hollow sculpture whose noisy contents remain a mystery to this day.”
This month we commissioned the work of Dobby Gibson, a Minneapolis-based poet whose two collections, Polar, and the recently released Skirmish, read like maps of a new kind of
Midwestern verse in which old Minnesota motifs—cold weather, Scandinavian stoicism—are made fresh.
“Being a poet just means being a certain kind of listener,” explains Gibson, who transforms snippets remembered from dreams and words misspoken at the dinner table into art that’s empathetic, yet inward and Wallace Stevens-inspired. The result is poetry that makes everyday moments lyrical and creates witty backdrops out of ordinary places.
Gibson credits much of his work to a need for productivity during the long Minnesota winters. “It’s cold and it’s dark,” he explains, “and I think my seasonal affective disorder comes through.”
The former novelist had never considered poetry until he was handed a copy of The Selected Poems of Frank O’Hara in graduate school. “That book kind of blew my mind,” he recalls. Lucky for us, he left plotlines behind for the shorter, free-form style present in his current work. “Poetry feels entirely necessary to me,” he says. “Like eating…or baking bread.”
DOBBY’S INSPIRATION FOR “SELF STORAGE”
“I was driving down Hiawatha Ave. and saw an orange “Self Storage” sign. I simply read the sign in this other, more interesting way, something I do often with billboards and road signs—partly to stave off boredom, partly to subvert received messaging. What a hilariously impossible concept, I thought, to attempt to store one’s own self! I instantly thought of Marcel Duchamp’s 1916 ready-made ‘With Hidden Noise,’ the famous, hollow sculpture whose noisy contents remain a mystery to this day.”
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