Girls and Handsome Dogs - Softcover

Sibum, Norm

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0889842302 ISBN 13: 9780889842304

Publisher: Porcupine's Quill Inc.,Canada, 2002

Synopsis

A collection of poetry that features a combination of randomness and order.

About this title

Review

'Norm Sibum has lived in Canada for over 30 years, and has published a dozen books of poems, yet is still little known. This, I suppose, is because he gives every indication of being a loner. He is a poet fascinated by incongruity and odd juxtapositions. He tends to pose as an inconspicuous observer commenting wryly on the strange people and events he sees around him in a dead-pan and highly allusive style. This style is erudite in reference, requiring readers not only to keep their wits about them but also to be imaginative enough to make connections between statements that often appear challenging and discontinuous. Girls and Handsome Dogs, attractively produced by the Porcupine's Quill, possesses the same quirky wit and insight that characterizes his earlier work. Prominent within it is a long poem, Aginthorpe on the Divan, that follows its main character through the drunken aftermath of a party in a series of poems that have the surreal vividness of a dream -- and may, in part, be presented as dream. In it we encounter a view of the contemporary world in all its bemusing combination of the absurd, the sublime, and the horrific. It is one of those puzzling if somewhat infuriating poems that do not give up their secrets easily but reveal enough to intrigue the mind and invite continued rereadings that prove more rewarding each time. Sibum, then, is his own man, and writes poetry that, for good or ill, is like no one else's. It can be as challenging as a cryptic crossword (one of his poems is actually about a crossword) and can become similarly addictive. An acquired taste, perhaps, but one that deserves to be both sampled and savored.'

Norm Sibum has lived in Canada for over 30 years, and has published a dozen books of poems, yet is still little known. This, I suppose, is because he gives every indication of being a loner. He is a poet fascinated by incongruity and odd juxtapositions. He tends to pose as an inconspicuous observer commenting wryly on the strange people and events he sees around him in a dead-pan and highly allusive style. This style is erudite in reference, requiring readers not only to keep their wits about them but also to be imaginative enough to make connections between statements that often appear challenging and discontinuous. Girls and Handsome Dogs, attractively produced by the Porcupine's Quill, possesses the same quirky wit and insight that characterizes his earlier work. Prominent within it is a long poem, Aginthorpe on the Divan, that follows its main character through the drunken aftermath of a party in a series of poems that have the surreal vividness of a dream -- and may, in part, be presented as dream. In it we encounter a view of the contemporary world in all its bemusing combination of the absurd, the sublime, and the horrific. It is one of those puzzling if somewhat infuriating poems that do not give up their secrets easily but reveal enough to intrigue the mind and invite continued rereadings that prove more rewarding each time. Sibum, then, is his own man, and writes poetry that, for good or ill, is like no one else's. It can be as challenging as a cryptic crossword (one of his poems is actually about a crossword) and can become similarly addictive. An acquired taste, perhaps, but one that deserves to be both sampled and savored.'

Norm Sibum has lived in Canada for over 30 years, and has published a dozen books of poems, yet is still little known. This, I suppose, is because he gives every indication of being a loner. He is a poet fascinated by incongruity and odd juxtapositions. He tends to pose as an inconspicuous observer commenting wryly on the strange people and events he sees around him in a dead-pan and highly allusive style. This style is erudite in reference, requiring readers not only to keep their wits about them but also to be imaginative enough to make connections between statements that often appear challenging and discontinuous. "Girls and Handsome Dogs", attractively produced by the Porcupine's Quill, possesses the same quirky wit and insight that characterizes his earlier work. Prominent within it is a long poem, "Aginthorpe on the Divan", that follows its main character through the drunken aftermath of a party in a series of poems that have the surreal vividness of a dream -- and may, in part, be presented as dream. In it we encounter a view of the contemporary world in all its bemusing combination of the absurd, the sublime, and the horrific. It is one of those puzzling if somewhat infuriating poems that do not give up their secrets easily but reveal enough to intrigue the mind and invite continued rereadings that prove more rewarding each time. Sibum, then, is his own man, and writes poetry that, for good or ill, is like no one else's. It can be as challenging as a cryptic crossword (one of his poems is actually about a crossword) and can become similarly addictive. An acquired taste, perhaps, but one that deserves to be both sampled and savored.'--W J Keith "Canadian Book Review Annual "

Sibum has a natural gift for meditative narrative, a quite powerful instinctive sense of appropriate form, and a wonderful and diverse eloquence in the old sense of that word.'--Michael Schmidt, Director "The Writing School, Manchester Metropolitan University "

"Girls and Handsome Dogs" by Norm Sibum is an eccentric work. Halfway into it, I confess I felt like the lady in Sibum's poem A Bash at Aginthorpe's'' who is not shy to admit to her host: I haven't the foggiest/As to what you could possibly be on about.'' Yet, preparing this review, I found myself copying out line after line, quotes that I coveted as guarantors of Sibum's talent.'--Andrew Steinmetz "Montreal Review of Books "

Synopsis

'One good swipe with the sword at the feet and the skeleton of the poem falls down laughing. That is Sibum's signature. To get an idea of how it looks on the ground, imagine taking an anthology of Victorian, pre-Raphaelite and Modernist poetry, tearing all the pages out, scattering them around on the floor in a central library in Baghdad, letting the looters walk over them for a few days, and then reassembling them - or what's left of them. The resulting combination of randomness and order would approximate what can found between the covers of Sibum's bed.'

About this edition

• Publisher: Porcupine's Quill Inc.,Canada
• Publication date: 2002
• ISBN 10: 0889842302
• ISBN 13: 9780889842304
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 128