Our Response to the Coronavirus (COVID-19) Outbreak

As a precaution to help limit the spread of coronavirus (COVID-19) and care for our community, Just Buffalo Literary Center has postponed a number of events, and we will follow the guidance of Buffalo Public Schools in terms of Just Buffalo Writing Center programming.

Learn More

10 Mar AUTOBIOGRAPHY by Marten Clibbens

Posted at 09:00h in Poem of the Week, Publications by
I, were I of sufficient authority, would
tell the story, but I am better fit to listen to it,
rudimentary and shattered as its allegiance to the
various rooms it briefly inhabits, decorates and
remembers or invariably consigns to the
vicissitudes of passage: Buffalo, Jerusalem,
Athens, Bristol, a shack in the Negev with
apricot cat for confidant. High in the sea wall of
Essaouira, the window a slot, or a slit, the red tip
of an incense stick our only light, whoever we
were, or presently construe ourselves to have
been. Carmarthen, Cadiz, Marrakech, Sheboygan,
Malvern, mendicant and hapless in all, except
Buffalo: the beneficence of its lack, the radiant
indifference of its lake.

About the Poet

Marten Clibbens

photo credit: Nicolette de Csipkay

Marten Clibbens (June 28, 1956-February 23, 2024) was a British poet of Welsh ancestry who arrived in Buffalo from Sussex, UK in 1986 to study with Robert Creeley at the University of Buffalo Graduate English program, and remained here for much of the ensuing 37 years, becoming a stalwart of the Buffalo poetry scene.

He published five slender volumes of verse: Sonet (Leave Books, 1995), Triplet (Starcherone Books, 1998), Sequence (Lost Pages Press, 2006), and Veterans Day and Three Forms (both from Buffalo Ochre Papers, 2010 and 2012, respectively). He has also collaborated on works of visual poetry with several artists, including Edward Gates, Richard Scharff and Anne Reed.

At the end of 2023, Yrtemmys Press released Marten’s collected poems, Rumours of Light, Poems 1990-2018, through the tireless efforts of publisher Edric Mesmer and editors Paige Melin and Tim McPeek, with long-time collaborator Edward Gates providing the cover art. Those interested in acquiring this definitive collection of Clibbens’s work should contact edricmesmer@yahoo.com or visit your favorite independent Buffalo bookseller.

Related Event

    • A memorial gathering and poetry reading to celebrate the life and work of Marten Clibbens will take place at the Adam Mickiewicz Library and Dramatic Circle from 6-10pm on Saturday, March 16. The Adam Mickiewicz Library and Dramatic Circle is located at 612 Fillmore Ave. in Buffalo, NY.

The Poem of the Week feature is curated by literary legacy awardee R.D. Pohl.

Tags:
,