Little glass planet : poems

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Title:

Little glass planet : poems

Author:

Gibson, Dobby, 1970- author.

Uniform Title:

Poems. Selections

ISBN:

9781555978426

Physical Description:

69 pages ; 23 cm.

Subject Term:

American poetry.

American poetry -- 21st century.

Genre:

Poetry

Summary:

The poems in Dobby Gibson's new book transform the everyday into the revelatory Little Glass Planet exults in the strangeness of the known and unknowable world. In poems set as far afield as Mumbai and Marfa, Texas, Dobby Gibson maps disparate landscapes, both terrestrial and subliminal, to reveal the drama of the quotidian. Aphoristic, allusive, and collaged, these poems mine our various human languages to help us understand what we might mean when we speak to each other-as lovers, as family, as strangers. Little Glass Planet uses lyric broadcasts to foreshorten the perceived distances between us, opening borders and pointing toward a sense of collectivity. "This is my love letter to the world," Gibson writes, "someone call us a sitter. / We're going to be here a while." Elegiac, funny, and candid, Little Glass Planet is a kind of manual for paying attention to a world that is increasingly engineered to distract us from our own humanity. It's a book that points toward hope, offering the possibilities of a "we" that only the open frequency of poetry can create, possibilities that are indistinguishable from love.

Holds:

Available:*

Library	Call Number	Status
Searching... Oakdale Library	811.6 GIB	Searching... Unknown
Searching... Park Grove Library (Cottage Grove)	811.6 GIB	Searching... Unknown
Searching... R.H. Stafford Library (Woodbury)	811.6 GIB	Searching... Unknown

Bound With These Titles

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Summary

The poems in Dobby Gibson's new book transform the everyday into the revelatory

Little Glass Planet exults in the strangeness of the known and unknowable world. In poems set as far afield as Mumbai and Marfa, Texas, Dobby Gibson maps disparate landscapes, both terrestrial and subliminal, to reveal the drama of the quotidian. Aphoristic, allusive, and collaged, these poems mine our various human languages to help us understand what we might mean when we speak to each other--as lovers, as family, as strangers. Little Glass Planet uses lyric broadcasts to foreshorten the perceived distances between us, opening borders and pointing toward a sense of collectivity. "This is my love letter to the world," Gibson writes, "someone call us a sitter. / We're going to be here a while."

Elegiac, funny, and candid, Little Glass Planet is a kind of manual for paying attention to a world that is increasingly engineered to distract us from our own humanity. It's a book that points toward hope, offering the possibilities of a "we" that only the open frequency of poetry can create, possibilities that are indistinguishable from love.

Author Notes

Dobby Gibson is the author of three previous poetry collections, Polar, Skirmish, and It Becomes You. He lives in St. Paul, Minnesota.

Reviews (1)

Publisher's Weekly Review

In his fourth book, Gibson (It Becomes You) offers an ode to poetry and the respite it provides from a restless, cacophonous world. A gentle protest of the politics that scorn love and empathy, this book invites the reader to log off from the ceaseless relay of information in order to reconnect with the natural world, as well as simple, beautiful objects, such as an antique Korean fishing bobber. Gibson is charmingly funny, as when he presents a mock etymological elegy for the actor Abe Vigoda: "That name, like something resurrected/ from a dictionary. Abe: another word/ for honesty. And vigoda, meaning:/ a sacred temple for vampires." The poem "Roll Call" considers activities that "the gods" may be engaging in at any given time, including "updating their secret map of lost mittens" and "chasing one another at the god park." The book contains many pithy observations ("it's impossible to get/ the same haircut twice") which occasionally seem cute or unnecessary. However, it contains many more remarkable, arresting images: "a lemon tree dressed in December ice like a girl in her grandmother's jewelry." The poem that opens the book's third section, "Inside the Compulsion to Wonder Lies the Will to Survive," effectively epitomizes the poet's worldview. Gibson offers the reader a quiet space to reflect on the metaphysical and to find peace in a time of chaos. (May) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

Dear Reader	p. 3
Prayer for November	p. 4
Elegy for Abe Vigoda	p. 5
Idaho	p. 7
L'Avenir Est Quelque Chose	p. 8
Drone	p. 10
Fire Drill	p. 13
To Be Transmitted by Fax	p. 15
Poem for an Antique Korean Fishing Bobber	p. 16
What the Cold Wants	p. 18
Roll Call	p. 19
Substitution	p. 20
I Can Do It All in My Lifetime	p. 22
Ode to the Future	p. 23
...
Fickle Sun, Loyal Shadow	p. 27
...
Inside the Compulsion to Wonder Lurks the Will to Survive	p. 41
Everything I've Learned So Far	p. 42
Selected Poems	p. 43
Why I Don't Have Any Tattoos	p. 45
The Impossibility of Sending You a Postcard from Mumbai	p. 46
Litany	p. 47
Bed in Winter	p. 48
Ziggurat	p. 49
Now Where Were We?	p. 50
Fall In	p. 51
April Light	p. 52
...
Trace	p. 55

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Summary

Summary

Author Notes

Reviews (1)

Publisher's Weekly Review

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