The Origins of Evening: Poems

by Gibb and Robert Gibb

Book Overview

Winner of the 1997 National Poetry Series, judged and selected by Eavan Boland. Of the collection, Eavan Boland wrote: The deft language and lyric intent of these poems serve one purpose: slowly and exactly they expose the dark, silvery images of a lost world. Here is Pittsburgh at twilight, in the old dusk of the steel mills. Here is a drug store, the Monongahela river, the trolleys and the carbarns. And here is memory at its most scalding, intense,...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0393319644
• ISBN13: 9780393319644
• Release Date: November 1999
• Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
• Length: 108 Pages
• Weight: 0.40 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.5" x 5.5" x 8.2"

Customer Reviews

Personal and "connected to the dark".

This book of poetry has a strong imagery and narrative, telling the stories of Pittsburgh and its depths. However, don't let Pittsburgh be misleading to the true themes: memory and darkness. The poems are honest, with a precise and not-too-wordy language that would block their strength. An example in "Home" from "A Connection to the Dark." "And in a voice hard as her fingers/ says 'Your dinner's in the oven/ getting cold.' Home is where/ Such scenes seemed to linger,/ Where you lost the first fears/ Of dying or being orphaned." I recommend this book to people who are starting to explore Contemporary American poetry, or people who are in the kingdom. I've read this book three times and from it at Open-Mic nights; it didn't win the National Poetry Series award for nothing (as the catch phrase goes). Its strengths go beyond their words and are as elusive as night.