Regie Gibson's first full-length book of poetry. A collection of poems and chants which the critically acclaimed poet has been performing world-wide since 1996.
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Editorial Reviews
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Gibson is a National Poetry Slam champion, cowriter for the loosely autobiographical film love jones (1997), and a poet of resonant power on the page as well as the stage. In his first book, he calls his poems chants and canticles, and they are both rhythmic and songlike. He writes often of music, paying tribute to jazzmen and Jimi Hendrix and writing wryly that God is a "blooz man." Wordplay is a defining element in Gibson's exploration of the plexus of spoken and written language, and as the title suggests, Gibson looks within and writes concretely about the flickerings of feelings, thoughts, memories, and desire. His poems are weather reports of the soul, erotic reveries, and red-hot attempts at seduction. There's a Beat aura here, a la Leroi Jones/Amiri Baraka, and a velvety strain of psychedelia. Gibson's poems can seem facile, but they're rich in archetypes and a cosmic sensibility, and when he does turn his gaze to the outer world, he writes with clarity, wit, and warmth. Donna Seaman
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
Review
"You sing and chant for all of us. Nobody gets left out." -- Kurt Vonnegut, Dec. 1998
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Poetry Beyond the Speed of Sound,
By
This review is from: Storms Beneath the Skin (Paperback)
The initial release of EM Press did not simply fly a few feet for a few seconds; it broke free from the earth’s gravity and flew to the moon. This is like NASA, instead shooting mammals into orbit, making it to the moon on the first try. Storms Beneath the Skin is Regie Gibson’s long overdue first poetry book. The meandering Slam minstrel has not stood still long enough in the last ten years for his words to be crystallized in print. For the poet described by Kurt Vonnegut as singing and chanting “for all of us,” Storms Beneath the Skin represents an audacious and auspicious debut in print. Behind the cover design by Gregory Harms featuring four epidermal close-ups is the first collection of poetry from one entrenched in the pantheon of Slam Poetry. The greatest poetry is elusively familiar, spiritually sensual, and harrowingly gentle. The 38 selections in Storms Beneath the Skin are divided into five sections: Chants, an invocation, coos, suite, and Canticles and Curses. Storms irradiates with dangerous diversity of word and theme. The initial poem, “Alchemy,” is a succinct critique of tone-deaf academicians who reduce language to grammar in the same way materialists reduce spirit to matterIn great poetry, language startles us, gyrating in new combinations: “cotton-myth our stories”; “daughter of desert/and dostoyevski”; “sightraped hunter” and “musebruise.” Storms startles us, from the chants to the haikus: u came on snake wings u red turjid gitar licks u left d same way.The Old Guard snivels at the New Poetic Proletarians like Regie Gibson. The Old Guard doubts that the word can make the transition from the stage to page. The fireworks on stage, they believe, conceal deep deficiencies in poetic formation. “When you [Regie] perform,” writes Vonnegut, “you are supersonic and in the stratosphere, where you can see that the earth really is a ball, moist, blue-green.” Audiences in the Slam World are dazzled by Gibson’s “bewitchingly/bleedin” performance of the “eulogy of jimi Christ,” an ode to Jimi Hendrix. The Old Guard views Slam Poetry as a mutation of their hallowed Tradition of Pretentiousness and Less Than Effusive Presentations of the Word. The Old Guard is as suspicious of the Stage Word having an afterlife as Page Word as they are as the spirit existing outside the body after death. Storms Beneath the Skin demonstrates that Word on Stage can exist and yes flourish on the page. Stage performance only enhances the lightening and lilting of Gibson’s poetry. As Vonnegut says: “To become a great artist, one must penetrate the sound barrier of secret self-pity, and the hate and fear that justifies.” Storms Beneath the Skin easily breaks the sound barrier. The only question remaining is what happens to poetry when it exceeds the speed of light.
5.0 out of 5 stars
10+ stars**REALLY REAL,
By "qremley" (Fairview Park, OH United States) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Storms Beneath the Skin (Paperback)
I had the pleasure of meeting Mr. Gibson and I own an autographed copy of his book. He is as real in person as he is on paper! His stage performance is enchanting. He seduces your thinking and leaves you speechlees.
5.0 out of 5 stars
too bad it only goes up to five,
By catherine green (beloit, wisconsin) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Storms Beneath the Skin (Paperback)
regie gibson's book was given to me as a gift. i doubt the person that gave me this knew how great a gift it was. i own more poetry than i can add on a calculator, and this book immediately took its place among my absolute favorite poetry collections and regie gibson is now one of my favorite contemporary poets. this man does incredible things with words; i'm astounded every time i read one of his poems (which is pretty often). if you buy any book at all, this should be it. you might even be able to make it a really amazing gift for someone who seems to have every book of poetry imaginable. (like me). this is too good of a secret to keep.
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