Tom Hibbard c.1997

Speaking of Tom Hibbard, here's an unpublished review I wrote in the summer of 97. I've resisted the temptation to rewrite it, but I have deleted some parts that were too overstated (and confusing). I was pretty excited by the book, but knew it would be getting very little notice. I sent the review to one magazine, but never heard back one way or the other (though I moved a couple times soon after and may not have sent the forwarding address).

Enchanted Streets by Tom Hibbard. Introspect Publications, 1997, unpaginated (52 poems), $5.00 [includes shipping]. [Introspect is gone, but some copies are still available directly from the author.]

The irony of the title is evident from the cover illustration: a ragged down-and-out worker sits on a curb, shoulders hunched, one hand gripping his forehead, one exasperated eye aimed at the reader over an angry frown. What’s "enchanted" about these streets? "Wheelchairs," "sewage," "pillars of agony," "Arby’s Roast Beef," "a lumber yard," "a small liquor store." But Tom Hibbard’s poems are not Bukowski or Ginsberg imitations, as so many "post-beat" poems of working-class America are. Writing in the age of the Service Economy and In Stock We Trust, Hibbard’s poems read more like those of a post-industrial Pierre Reverdy.

        street signs say "quit"
        pots and pans say "one way"

        past the K-mart of the skull
        past the squirtguns the foil the tips
                (from "running")

In fact, Hibbard has published translations of Reverdy’s poetry and the influence is apparent, beyond the lack of punctuation and economy of words, in his eye for the marginal detail, his juxtapositions of the concrete with the abstract, his ability to create an ominous mood. Metaphors often remain implicit, so that the real world beneath "the real world" is evoked, or rather, allowed presence. In this sense Hibbard’s work may be situated in a long line of writers/thinkers that includes Reverdy and Robert Creeley (e.g. "There is a world / underneath, or / on top of, / this one—and / it’s here, now." Creeley, Collected Poems p.621) and goes far back as Heraclitus (e.g. "Nature loves to hide").

        payback time
        7:04
        the sunset
        pair of scuffed shoes

        . . .

        checking
        water the sink
        big tire sale
                (from "harassed seated river")

Yet, Hibbard isn't ransacking the surface world for "interesting details," desperately trying to be a writer, as is so often the case in the post–workshop-boom poetry scene. Rather, details accrue in all of their natural spontaneity, in a way that has its end in questioning, What is natural anyway?

        at the shaven monument
        a pilgrimage
        leads us out of slavery
        not into it
        thirty-five is the veil of collaboration
        so is thirty
        the landscaped hill
        the tattoo
        is a nickel worth more than six cents?
                ("the rainbow")

Hibbard takes his cues from the outside world, explicating the urban landscape in his own post-surrealist way:

        pervasive bottle of Sprite

        dirty lids
        a star’s light dies
        a fish jumps onto a bus
                (from "the forgotten trick")

Hibbard is one of the few poets in the world enough to observe "vending machines the size of fear", or to remark that "manna is non-Cartesian", and his book is uniquely of the American heartland: "a candle / for the UN / security council."

Points Elsewhere

Been a little short on time and content lately. Here are some points elsewhere:

As part of his platform in the 2000 campaign, Jello Biafra called for a ban on SUVs. As it turns out, such a plan has something of a head start: California's SUV Ban—The Golden State has outlawed big SUVs on many of its roads but doesn't seem to know it (by Andy Bowers).

A couple weeks ago at Crag Hill's poetry scorecard, Hill posted on the reviews of Tom Hibbard. Great to see some notice for Hibbard, who contributed work to both of my short-lived publishing projects, Brass City and The End Review. He has also done many translations from the French, including these from one of my all-time favorites, Pierre Reverdy.