The precision, originality, and playfulness of Robert Gibbs’ poems have captivated readers for over half a century. Mixing the cerebral and the heartfelt, Gibbs’ poems investigate and celebrate family, history, and nature with decisive imagery, idiomatic immediacy, punning wordplay, and breadth of imagination.
An ideal introduction to Gibbs’ poetic world, The Essential Robert Gibbs collects some of the finest, most thought-provoking works from throughout his career. Sometimes compared to Gerard Manley Hopkins and Margaret Avison, he has been called a ‘gourmet of the minimal’ who ‘devotes himself to asserting the value of the ordinary’ (M. Travis Lane) and his work demonstrates both a sophisticated grasp of the human mind and a warm familiarity of voice.
Gibbs’ poems mix sensuous dreamscapes and grounded realities. In his poems landscapes are evoked in all their ripeness, a father’s quiet nobility is celebrated, writer’s block becomes a force of nature, and a mind can become a home.