Skirmish: Poems [Paperback]

Dobby Gibson (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 6, 2009

New poetry by Dobby Gibson, author of Polar, which “teems with a language so alive and so imaginative that one cannot help but read on with wonder and rapture” (The Bloomsbury Review)

We have to escape while we can.
I’m trying to remember you—quick,
now you try to remember me.
                                    —from “Refuge”

 

With sheer wit and keen observation, Dobby Gibson’s Skirmish puts into conflict the private and public self, civil disobedience and civic engagement, fortunes told and fortunes made. These poems imaginatively, sometimes manically, move from perception to perception with the speed of a mind forced moment by moment to make sense of distant war and local unrest, global misjudgment and suspicious next-door neighbors, the splice-cuts of the media and the gliding leaves on the Mississippi River.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

A noirish current runs through Gibson's second collection, which finds fascination in dark, abandoned urban or suburban spaces and unsolvable everyday mysteries: There's a street beneath this street, a city beneath this city,/ inhabited by empty tunnels/ built for trains that never arrived. These mostly short, free verse poems hum with gloomy humor and the mood of pregnant anticipation one finds in a Paul Auster novel. Gibson (Polar) is no escapist, though, portraying an anxious America in the new millennium. A palpable sense of paranoia is figured as spies who crop up in several poems. The sense of alienation pervades not just the public but also the domestic sphere (Soon I realized: they weren't actors,/ they were my family). Gibson also tries the fable, where he finds a comfortable home for his brand of black humor: There was once a roofer who lived/ a full life even though a stake/ had been driven through his forehead. Gibson mixes the language of public discourse, science, TV and everyday conversation in a chatty if bleak voice that is both accessible and satisfyingly challenging. (Jan.)
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Review

Praise for Polar:

“In figures as elaborate and beautiful as frost, Dobby Gibson reinvents poetic argument, often as surprised and delighted by its own wild and energetic means as it is by its wild and sometimes mordant conclusions.” —Dean Young

“I have read few more quotable first books . . . Polar is friendly, yearning, observant, immediately winning and witty.” —The Yale Review

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 80 pages
• Publisher: Graywolf Press (January 6, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1555975151
• ISBN-13: 978-1555975159
• Product Dimensions: 8.7 x 5.9 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,314,557 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Dobby Gibson is the author of the poetry collection Polar (Alice James Books, 2005), which won the Beatrice Hawley Award, and Skirmish (Graywolf Press, 2009). A new poetry collection is forthcoming from Graywolf Press in 2013. He lives in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Just read it., August 26, 2009

By 

Tim (Minnesota) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Skirmish: Poems (Paperback)

I dig Dobby Gibson. A creative writing professor suggested I check Gibson's work out, and after a few google searches, I learned about SKIRMISH and POLAR (his first collection, which is also excellent). Ultimately, this is stunning, meditative work. This particular collection (his latest) includes dozens of "Fortune" poems that work with future tense in a fascinating manner. There's humor and weight to his poems that are very rewarding. I look forward to diving back into his poems--there's always something new to discover.