Not Hearing the Wood Thrush - by Margaret Gibson (Paperback)

About the Book

"A book of poems by Margaret Gibson focusing on themes such as nature and humanity"--Provided by publisher.

Book Synopsis

"I look about and find whatever I see / unfinished," Margaret Gibson writes in these powerful and moving poems, which investigate a late-life genesis. Not Hearing the Wood Thrush grapples with the existential questions that come after experiencing a great personal loss. A number of poems meditate on loneliness and fear; others speak to "No one"--a name richer than prayer or vow." In this transformative new collection, Gibson moves inward, taking surprising, mercurial turns of the imagination, guided by an original and probative intelligence. With a clear eye and an open heart, Gibson writes, "How stark it is to be alive"--and also how glorious, how curious, how intimate.

Review Quotes

At once plainspoken and profoundly inventive, these poems have a quality of attention that is riveting. Gibson's courage to look without preconception, and to resist straining after philosophical or poetic conclusions, makes her piercing awareness possible. 'Not-knowing, ' said Zen Master Shunryu Suzuki, 'is most intimate.' Again and again, Gibson illuminates human sentience with subtle and surprising force. This is an important book, whose spare, vivid language rises out of the babel of contemporary American poetry like a star.--Chase Twichell

One of Margaret Gibson's epigraphs to her deep, lyrically gorgeous Not Hearing the Wood Thrush is 'Let what comes, come; let what goes, go. Find out what remains.' I can think of no recent book that so lives up to the wisdom of all three parts of that quote. But to say that it's a spiritual love story that deals with her husband's illness and death, and how she lives with it, is not to give her book its full due. It's a book of lament and acceptance, a metaphysical exploration of what's inescapable, a great book (I say with conviction) by one of our best poets.--Stephen Dunn

What I'm especially struck by and love in Margaret Gibson's new collection is how she manages to compose an authentic body-language for whatever we may think of as the soul. Few poets can be as passionately direct in feeling, in thought, and at the same time so discreet, so poised in expression. 'What's given/is quicksilver, ' she says, yet she catches all such quicksilver givens in the well-wrought net of her wide-awake language. Her poems allow us to be her well-nourished companions on a remarkable spiritual journey.--Eamon Grennan

About the Author

Margaret Gibson is the author of twelve collections of poems and one prose memoir. A native of Virginia, now a resident of Preston, Connecticut, she has received numerous honors, including the Lamont Selection, Connecticut Book Award, and Melville Kane Award. Her collection The Vigil was a finalist for the National Book Award in Poetry.