Topic of the Week: Contemporary Poetry April 13, 2009

Topic of the Week for April 10-17:
Contemporary Poetry

Dobby Gibson

LitChat honors poets and poetry along with the rest of the nation during National Poetry Month. Joining us as guest host on Friday, April 17th is Dobby Gibson, author of two poetry collections, Skirmish and Polar. Skirmish was released by Graywolf Press in January of this year. Polar (Alice James Books) won the Beatrice Hawley Award in 2004. Dobby lives in Minneapolis.

Reviewers said about Skirmish:

“These mostly short, free verse poems hum with gloomy humor and the mood of pregnant anticipation one finds in a Paul Auster novel. Gibson is no escapist, though, portraying an anxious America in the new millennium.” Publishers Weekly

“Like a photo whose power lies in having its focal point not in the middle of the picture but on its periphery, Gibson demonstrates that it’s not about what you’re seeing—it’s about what you’re ignoring.” Library Journal

Reviewers said this about Polar:

“Gibson’s land teems with a language so alive and so imaginative that one cannot help but read on with wonder and rapture.” Bloomsbury Review

“Polar can mean opposites, harsh light, or a vast white blankness, and it is an apt title for Gibson’s first poetry collection, which reverberates with absences—weather, time, places, sensations—either going or gone.” Library Journal