Description:
C. S. Giscombe's "Here" is a long, single poem that takes place in a progression of three settings, three unlikely locations: the edges of the urban south, the edges--just beyond and just within the city--of rural Ohio, and the places where upstate New York forms the border with Canada, "the next country." "Here" is racial in its knowledge and acknowledgment of the great geographic archetype, the journey north; yet the work's nature denies the closure of destination. The poem's interest instead is in statement(s) of situation, in "the path traced by a moving point." First published by Dalkey Archive Press in 1994, now available again.
Brief description: C. S. Giscombe is the author of several books of poetry, including Giscome Road and Here, both of which are available from Dalkey Archive Press. He has also published a memoir entitled Into and Out of Dislocation. He is the editor of Mixed Blood, a poetry journal, and teaches at the University of California at Berkeley.
Review Quotes:
"Giscombe's concise poems -- which are always essentially unpredictable -- have an odd and vivid beauty. They move in intricately woven patterns (like the candid language of risky dreams), from the emotional depths of the most private places to places post-personal yet not quite public. And they make this journey with elegance, eloquence, wit, knife-sharp observations, and tenderness." -- Clarence Major