6B Pencils

“I love the variety and virtuosity that Karen Mobley displays in 6B Pencils. There’s a parade of animals, including a hilarious look at gastropods that will challenge your fondness for escargot; unflinching explorations of grief and despondency; and remembrances of her Wyoming roots and her adopted hometown of Spokane (as a longtime Spokane resident, I especially enjoyed her riffed timelines of the history and culture of the city). I could tell you more, but you need to read it for yourself.”

Chris Cook

“In 6B Pencils, Karen Mobley sharpens experiences down to a fine point, transmuting loss, grief, childhood, the pandemic, and the problems of aging into tight imagery. Through her eyes ants are transformed into ‘Friendly Formidae,’ a nuisance it becomes easy to love. But the writer wishes she could also love slugs ‘the way that birds do.’ She tries to love the revolting parts of life, the difficult and painful. She suggests the dead need our April Fools pranks more than the rest of us, that we save grief ‘for when it rains.’ By the end, these patient poems prove their contradictions: ‘It is possible to be happy and lonely at the same time.’”

Mark L. Anderson

“Karen Mobley’s poems brim with expectancy and finding. Unafraid, Mobley explores the full range of life: heady lust gone flaccid, cancer, crows, a woodpecker, ants. The ever-present question of little fingers on one hand. How does one navigate the full stops of death, loss? Each poem holds within an unwillingness to give up. The first poem offers in its tiny hands the insistent wonder Karen finds in our imperfect world. Within life’s harsh realities—who can find, like Karen, what will save the world?”

Susan Cowger