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In Laban's Field: Selected Poems

Norm Sibum

Norm Sibum - In Laban's Field
Imprint: Carcanet Poetry
Publisher: Carcanet Press
Available as:
Paperback (96 pages)
(Pub. Oct 1997)
9781857540383
Out of Stock
  • Description
  • Author
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  • Norm's wry, expansive poems tell stories, and his characters, ancient and modern - prophets, emperors and cabbies -address the old, unanswered questions with their lives, their failures and losses, their unanticipated moments of love. He shares the stoic pessimism of Tiberius, reflecting on the accident of his rule, and Marcus Aurelius, contemplating his impending death. This pessimism is remote from the easy cynicism of our age, yet Sibum is among the most modern of poets. He defines the present world by what it lacks, or by the small things of the past it retains, despite itself. His classicism is always without nostalgia, and he doesn't long for the desert when his Old Testament figures speak. There is always 'unfinished business' for the poems to explore.
    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
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