Unless you're relatively new to Spokane's creative scene, chances are you've brushed elbows with Karen Mobley at some point.
Maybe you met her at one of her art shows, where she showcases paintings and "doodles," as she calls them. Maybe you ran into her at a public art dedication that she had a hand in. Or maybe you've had the pleasure of chatting with Mobley and meeting her three beloved cats — Andrew Wyeth, Marie Curie and Betye Saar — in her South Hill home.
Between art shows and her work with Spokane Arts, however, Mobley is always writing. Her latest musings are now compiled into a new book of poetry titled 6B Pencils.
The collection marks Mobley's third venture into the literary world. In 2020 she released Trial by Ordeal, a poetry collection reflecting a period of great loss in her life, followed by 2021's Catatopia, a collection detailing her experiences during the COVID-19 lockdown.
Some of the poems in 6B Pencils are pieces Mobley deemed too "playful" to include in Trial by Ordeal. Yet she noticed a few common threads connecting the scrapped poems and figured they deserved a place in another collection.
Unlike Mobley's previous books, 6B Pencils is less rooted in a moment in time. Rather, the poems are divided into thematic sections from the past few years of the author's life.
"There's the — I guess I'm going to call them erotic poems — there's a group of poems based on experiences with specific places," Mobley says. "And then there are a group of poems that were created because they were asked for in some way."
These "erotic poems" are some of the first few in the collection. Though not explicitly sexual, Mobley uses an apple pie analogy and a burning bush on the day of Pentecost to express sensuality and sexual experiences.
A poem titled "I Am Spokane," meanwhile, comes from former Spokane poet laureate Laura Read's project I Am A Town, a collection of local poets writing about local places significant to them.
"I am a margarita at the Baby Bar, a poem in the mouth," it reads, referencing the longtime downtown nightlife establishment and its recurring Broken Mic event. "I am the children feeding the garbage-eating goat."
Mobley, though well-versed in the intricacies of Spokane culture, grew up in rural Wyoming. She calls the Lilac City home now, but her art and writing are informed by her bucolic upbringing. The artist says her parents introduced their children to a wide array of subjects.
"We were talking about everything from Egyptians to veterinary surgery at our house," she says. "Politics, religion, science — especially about biology."
Due to their rural surroundings, Mobley grew up with very few kids around, having more contact with adults than children her age, but she had her brother Curt. The two wrote poetry together, created art and even told stories by knocking on the walls in Morse code.
The collection's title refers to a box of 6B pencils that Curt, a cartoonist, left behind after his death in 2002.
"I finally used them all up," Mobley says. "They were all sharpened away. It was an emotional resonance. Not only was he gone, but the thing which was a legacy of his life in mine is now gone, too."
I am a margarita
at the Baby Bar,
a poem in the mouth,
I am the children feeding the
garbage-eating goat.
— "I Am Spokane" by Karen Mobley
The poem "Friendly Formidae" is dedicated to her brother's memory. Another, "Ask me about the time," details other losses that Mobley has experienced.
"You know that thing they say, that someone is never really dead until people stop remembering them?" she asks. "A little bit of the grief echo in 6B Pencils is that. We're getting to the point where I'm the one who remembers, but others don't."
The last poem in 6B Pencils is Mobley's call to action for those grieving.
"Save something for a rainy day...I saved my mother's love, stowed it in the deep pocket of my coat like a river rock... Grief is not contagious. But save it. Save it until it rains." ♦
6B Pencils is available at Auntie's Bookstore, Wishing Tree Books, The Northwest Museum of Arts & Culture and From Here. Learn more Karen Mobley at karenmobley.com.
