Breaths' Burials

by Gustaf Sobin

The poems in Gustaf Sobin's newest collection, Breaths' Burials, establish a dialogue with silence. Breath, its syllables buried in the resonant space between the word and the void, unlocks the gloriole, the ring of things released. Whether Sobin is writing about irises, Venetian architecture, or the wind-blown plateaus of his adopted Provence, his poems are nothing more nor less than a search for the redemptive, celebrating the regeneration of language out of itself. Breaths' Burials once again confirms the praise of Robert Duncan, who described Sobin's work as a poetry of great distinction, awakening the spirit to a world of errant clarities renewed.

Genres: Poetry

101 pages, Paperback

First published May 1, 1995

Reviews

[M.W.P.M. · Rating 4 out of 5]

. . . as if written
in a
book of glass, read

of so
many sunken
numbers, eyes

fluttering like
fish at
the

base of
the
world. there, what-

ever issued, only
re-
entered, in-

extricable as
wind, but
viscous,

ballasted, the
heart as
if walking on its

head. was there a
way, asked
the word of the

word? memory
flooded, and lust
too

sudden, counted corals,
rep-
licated beads, while the

breath, hesitant,
hung be-
tween syllables.

- As If Written in a Book of Glass, pg. 3-4

* * *

(no, it's
not me, now,
who's being illusive, but the overwhelming
im-
mediacy of each
vacant instant. the surfeit

of so
much
scuttled letter).

- from Ode on the Elaboration of Interval, pg. 8

* * *

where dew slips,
icy
pearl, from its

petal, the
tall stalk

scarce-
ly trembles. . . .

- from Fourteen Irises for J.L., pg. 12

* * *

called it: tracing a
thirst, the poem
as it

sluices a
passage; with each,
dry

utterance, edges
toward its
own

ob-
fuscated source. no,
not the

world, the
world's, but
per-

haps, its
very
postulate. what the

winds
would lap, and the
tongue,

ultimately,
muscle: breath, like
so

many
empty bubbles, brought
to

that pleated lip.

- Tracing a Thirst, pg. 22-23

* * *

. . . here, only
empty
gestures, inftuated
deed. with the
brief
sweep of
a hand, he's
showing her
toward the tall,
chocolate-
brown volumes, his
eyes, all the
while, fixed
upon the
deep
heave of her bosom.

- from Lines from Pietro Longhi, pg. 38

* * *

on the
'no' of
that mumble, its thin
meats, gnaw.

- from Transparent Itineraries: 1992, pg. 57

* * *

. . . wasn't burial
what you'd meat, the breaths'
re-
current tombs? jars, those cherished
vessels, what first

had brought you, still
stammering, into
that late

hiatus. rings, circles, the
pathetic attempt at
some
illusory circum-

scription. what rushes, rushes wordless, now,
towards its very
heart. there,
as the

string snaps, the opals, in the same
instant, would
spill.

- Breaths' Burial, pg. 64

[JB · Rating 5 out of 5]

Gustaf Sobin closes Breaths’ Burials stating

whatever utters,
utters nothing, really. and makes of that
nothing —lyric— its
only
measure. https://anewmeasurepoetryreport.blogs...

[Dylan Jarrell · Rating 4 out of 5]

beautiful writing. I really like how he makes his works so malleable and luminescent.