Carcanet Press Logo
Quote of the Day
Devotedly, unostentatiously, Carcanet has evolved into a poetry publisher whose independence of mind and largeness of heart have made everyone who cares about literature feel increasingly admiring and grateful.
Andrew Motion

The November Propertius

Norm Sibum

Cover Picture of The November Propertius
Imprint: Carcanet Poetry
Publisher: Carcanet Press
Available as:
Paperback (96 pages)
(Pub. Aug 1998)
9781857543032
Out of Stock
  • Description
  • Excerpt
  • Author
  • Reviews
  • Autumn went and friends fell away --
    Those flowers of a lovely time gone. No more warm nights.
    No more moon for us
    Inebriate on the lawn.
    Meat was consumed, wine was spilled
    On elaborate tablecloths.
    But rockets and rebels and heads of state
    Are quite burned out
    Of their old life.
    Some hour arrived.
    I press roses in a book.


    from `The November Propertius'

                  
    If there's an autumnal feeling to the title of Norm Sibum's new book, it is a fruitful season despite early frosts, the loves, unmellow anxieties and reflections of the voices who tell us their stories. Some of the speakers are ancient, some modern, and all of them have questions dictated by their situations in life and history. These are not dramatic monologues: they are lyrical and philosophical. The characters are for the most part stoical and pessimistic, but their pessimism is classical, remote from the easy cynicism and reductive irony of our age. Yet here, as in his earlier collections, Sibum proves one of the most modern of our poets: his classicism is without nostalgia, his satire is unresigned. Around the complex, reflective sentences his characters utter, their world materialises, they become present. The poet's task is one of effacement before his subjects: they arrive in the poem, in their chosen moments, whole.
    Born in Oberammergau in 1947, Norm Sibum grew up in Germany, Alaska, Utah and Washington and now lives in Montreal. He founded the Vancouver Review in 1989 and has published several collections in Canada. In 1993 Carcanet published In Laban's Field, a selected poems and his British début. ... read more
    Praise for Norm Sibum 'A world is glimpsed from the corner of his eye, a multiplicity of voices is briefly overheard. From these Sibum has made a rough, durable fabric; he is a Browning for our times while at the same time having developed a voice that is completely his own.'
    Marius Kociejowski
Share this...
The Carcanet Blog Near-Life Experience: Rowland Bagnall read more The Silence: Gillian Clarke read more Baby Schema: Isabel Galleymore read more The Iron Bridge: Rebecca Hurst read more Sleepers Awake: Oli Hazzard read more The Miraculous Season: V.R. 'Bunny' Lang, edited by Rosa Campbell read more
Find your local bookshop logo
Arts Council Logo
We thank the Arts Council England for their support and assistance in this interactive Project.
This website ©2000-2024 Carcanet Press Ltd