In this episode of Next Up to The Mic, we welcome Wil Gibson who was our featured poet at the Albany Poets Presents reading series at Restaurant Navona on April 20, 2016.
Dan Wilcox was at the reading and wrote,
Wil Gibson did a free-wheeling reading, beginning with memoirs of his childhood, his mother dying when he was 13 years-old. He read from chapbooks & notebooks, including the poems “Street Corner Gods, Parts 1 & 2” from his undated chapbook Pilgrim from Red Bench Press of Eureka, California, with his traveling buddy Alex Horspool on ukulele.
Alex switched to an alto sax for Wil’s tribute to the gone Beat poet Jack Micheline (1929 – 1998) “A Poem for Razors & Sea Lions,” as well as others. Alex himself read a brief poem from his phone.
Wil’s poems frequently referenced “god” & his mother & he is solidly in the Beat tradition, such as “The Right Foot of God” & “To My Students Who Ask Me How to be a Writer.” In the Q&A session with Thom Francis & the audience, he pointed to his white-trash/truck driver/homeless/drug addict background, but, in addition to the Beats, pointed to Kurt Vonnegut, Stuart Dybek, Gil Scott-Heron, & Tom Waits as inspiration. He lives in Humboldt County, CA but is nostalgic for Chicago & Portland, Maine.
Wil Gibson currently lives in Humboldt County, California where the trees are big. He has had five collections published by kind people, and has been included in a number of anthologies and lit mags both online and in print, such as Marsh Hawk Review, Button Poetry, Midwestern Gothic, Drunk in a Midnight Choir, Cascadia Rising, Collective Unrest, Yellow Chair Review and many more. He has twice been nominated for both a Pushcart and Best of the Net, and currently opening a poetry-only bookstore and art gallery.
You can find links to books and a longer, more detailed bio at wilgibson.com
Please welcome, next up to the mic, Wil Gibson.
Bonus Video
Music Credit
Our theme music was “Imagination” by Danijel Zambo. License code: 44TCGFPF1L1434BE
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