From Valentine, by Jason Gabbert

Poetry, chapbook, 28 pages, from Bottlecap Features.

From Valentine is a series of epistolary poems-as-collage exploring the narrative of a being concurrently existing as human and celestial body communicating to a narcissistic mother, Pluto, and a bottle. From Valentine navigates topics ranging from parent-child relationships, transparency, light, color, longing, identity, fear, escape, the traps of answering questions that sometimes carry no answers, and existing in space.

This work came to being as a project of discovery wherein a few poems given the same title ("From Valentine") juxtaposed themselves and posed several questions (who is Valentine? What is Valentine? Who is Valentine speaking to?) begging to be revealed further through the act of writing. Though no perfect answer is given, an experience is exposed for each reader to explore and relate to individually.

Jason Gabbert graduated from PNCA with an MFA in creative writing. He writes prose, poetry, nonfiction, fiction, concrete, abstract, viscous, translucent, fog, and almost always ocean. Jason’s relationship with his writing is similar to that of his dreams: the many scenes and beings that present themselves often feel out of his control and open to endlessly evolving creative interpretations. Because of this, Jason’s words lean toward fragmentary exploration filled with symbolism and speculation. At the core of his practice is a writhing movement toward empathy and a desire to understand himself and the world he is a part of. Jason lives with his wife and three children in Portland, Oregon.