Draft:Mark Gibbons

• File:Symbol opinion vote.svg Comment: To establish that Gibbons meets Wikipedia's inclusion criteria, we need additional secondary, in-depth sources about him and his work. Are there any reviews of his poetry, or profiles in newspapers or similar that you could cite? The external links in this draft should also be removed or converted to inline citations where appropriate. MCE89 (talk) 23:06, 14 December 2025 (UTC)

• File:Symbol opinion vote.svg Comment: In accordance with Wikipedia's Conflict of interest policy, I disclose that I have a conflict of interest regarding the subject of this article. Sean Michael Gibbons (talk) 22:42, 14 December 2025 (UTC)

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Mark Gibbons is an American poet who served as Montana's poet laureate from 2021 to 2023.

Biography

Born October 2, 1954, in Montana (MT), Mark was raised in Alberton, MT. He was introduced to creative writing when author James Welch taught a poetry workshop at his high school in 1970.

Mark worked a number of blue-collar jobs throughout his life, and is known for writing about these experiences in his poetry. He taught high school English for a decade, first in Augusta, MT, and then in Pablo, MT. Eventually, he settled in Missoula, MT, where he has taught poetry in the schools through the Missoula Writing Collaborative for more than 20 years. He is also a coach for Montana Poetry Out Loud, which sends Montana high-school students to the national poetry recitation contest in Washington, D.C.

Mark lives with his wife Pam Gibbons, and they have two sons: Sean and Cache Gibbons.

Education

Mark Gibbons earned a BA in English and psychology and an MFA in creative writing, both from the University of Montana. Mark's early writing career was influenced by Richard Hugo, along with contemporary Montana poets, like Ed Layhe and Sheryl Noethe.

Poetry

Mark is the author of eleven collections of poetry. His first chapbook of poems, Something Inside Us, was self- published in 1995, and a second, Circling Home, won the Scattered Cairns Press chapbook competition in 1999. He is also the author of the collections mostly cloudy (FootHills Publishing, 2020); The Imitation Blues (FootHills Publishing, 2017); Shadowboxing (FootHills Publishing, 2014); Forgotten Dreams (FootHills Publishing, 2012); blue horizon (Two Dogs Press, 2007); and Connemara Moonshine (Camphorweed Press, 2002). He is the coauthor, with Appalachian poet Michael Revere, of War, Madness, & Love (R & R Publishing, 2008), a collaborative collection of poems. Mauvaises Herbes (Weeds), a bilingual translation of Gibbons’s poems into French, was published by propos2editions in 2009. His most recent collection, In the Weeds, was published in 2021 by the Drumlummon Institute. He is the editor of several poetry collections, including: Summer Lightning by Marylor Wilson (Drumlummon Institute, 2019), Moving On: The Last Poems of Ed Lahey (Drumlummon Institute, 2018), and The Science of Coincidence by Sheryl Noethe (Drumlummon Institute, 2025).

During his tenure as Montana Poet Laureate, Mark hosted a series of interviews of other Montana writers and poets on Missoula Community Access Television.

Mark has appeared several times on Montana Public Radio, including a 2020 interview on The Write Question with Sarah Aronson.

Honors

• Scattered Cairns Press chapbook competition, 1999
• Artist Innovation Award, Montana Arts Council, 2013
• Montana Poet Laureate, 2021-2023