The Dissolving Island [Paperback]

David Rigsbee (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 1, 2004

Poetry. "The work of a raconteur of the spirit, a splendid storyteller with just enough jaunty language to make you feel you'd want to hear almost anything he had to say. He is elegiac and disciplined, rapturous and suspicious, but more than anything else these are the sort of poems that James Wright once called the poetry of a grown man. I'd add the poems of a remarkable, felicitous intelligence" --Dave Smith.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

David Rigsbee was educated at The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, The Johns Hopkins University, Hollins College, and The University of Virginia. The most recent of his nine previous books is Invited Guest: An Anthology of Twentieth-Century Southern Poetry (co-edited with Steven Ford Brown). His awards include fellowships and prizes from the National Endowment for the Arts, Virginia Commission on the Arts, the Fine Arts Work Center at Provincetown, and the Academy of American Poets. His work has appeared in such places as The New Yorker, Poetry, and American Poetry Review.

Product Details

• Paperback: 72 pages
• Publisher: BkMk Press of UMKC (January 1, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 188615743X
• ISBN-13: 978-1886157439
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.4 x 0.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #5,277,824 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4.0 out of 5 stars Adirondack Review--Dec. 21, 2003-Reviewed by Ace Boggess, January 1, 2004

By A Customer

This review is from: The Dissolving Island (Paperback)

The Dissolving Island      by David Rigsbee
BkMk Press, 2003 (ISBN 188615743X)

      I think perhaps my long fascination with the poems of David Rigsbee comes from a scene in my own life where, as a young writer (age 19, or thereabout), I turned in a rather terrible philosophical poem as part of a college creative course. The professor, not brave enough to state the simple truth that my poem was weak, returned it instead with the following note in voice-of-God red ink on top: "There is no place for philosophy in poetry." I confess, I have spent much of the last decade trying to prove her wrong.  In a way, Rigsbee's poetry does that for me-much better in fact than mine does, and without trying so hard. In his newest book, The Dissolving Island, he manages to mix the thought-provoking wisdom of the philosophical 'Greats' with clear, precise language and images just as powerful as the ideas he attaches to them. Sometimes he blatantly uses the philosophers themselves to add depth and texture to a piece, as in his poem, "Sketches of Spain":

             Times were better once,
             before I read Spinoza
             and felt his logic shake
             my senses. It was like
             a summons to a man
             on his over-stuffed couch:
             "Your reading this
             indicates your compliance."

      That is not to say, however, that Rigsbee overloads his poems with just the meditations of Aristotle, Nietzsche, and the like. In fact, he uses philosophy the same way some poets use sarcasm, and others, the erotic: it fills in the gaps between poet and reader, adding context, building a bridge that helps with understanding.
      Even though many of Rigsbee's poems use ideas as poetic devices, the scenes he describes are what carry these poems and make them worth the attention they demand. He focuses on picture and narrative alike, describing a possum struck on the road, a foggy portrait, and his own coming to grips with his brother's suicide, all with the same high seriousness and sense of purpose. This latter especially he shares in such a way that the reader is moved to show him sympathy he never asks for, as with these lines from "Safe Box":

             Fresh from contemplating his own death,
             now that the cancer, like rain on a carpet,
             had upgraded its strain,
             my father showed me the gun
             my brother used to kill himself.
             "Who gave him this thing?" I asked.
             "I gave it to him," he said.
             "Wish I hadn't done that," . . .

      Sometimes idea fades into the background, allowing an image to work its magic on the reader. Then, Rigsbee draws a clear, bright sketch with care and precision as, here, in "Turner's Mists":

             The sky begins, on one side, to assert itself.
             Its brand of blue, which in our century

             stands for the indifferent, dispenses
             meaning, revealing a bay

             and implicit in it, ships and commerce.
             Such sky, then, looks forward;

             even its mist equals only momentary chaos,
             out of which land is coming to life.

      Taken as a whole, Rigsbee's poems have a depth and complexity that make them fun to read once, but powerful taken in many times. The poet has honed his craft to a sharp point that he uses to make pinprick after pinprick instead of one fatal spear's hole. That leaves the end result the same, though one gets there after so much more awareness of the wounds. 
      Recommendation: All in all, The Dissolving Island is a wonderful read from cover to cover. Rigsbee's craft and seriousness make these poems seem as though they have been carved from marble in stead of merely inked on a page. This volume easily merits the $12.95 cover price. So, as Socrates himself might have put it: the only thing I know is that I know you should buy this book. Or, maybe it was Sartre who said . . . oh, never mind.  Just pick it up. Trust me.