Here

by C.S. Giscombe

C. S. Giscombe’s Here is a long, single poem that takes place in a progression of three settings, three unlikely the edges of the urban south, the edges―just beyond and just within the city―of rural Ohio, and the places where upstate New York forms the border with Canada, “the next country.” Here is racial in its knowledge and acknowledgment of the great geographic archetype, the journey north; yet the work’s nature denies the closure of destination. The poem’s interest instead is in statement(s) of situation, in “the path traced by a moving point.” “C.S. Giscombe makes evident a genius of attention to all the determinants of any one of us, our particulars, our people. He traces with consummate art the passage of time through his own accumulating presence, his points of origin and return” – Robert Creeley “Here is a powerful, understated meditation on place, ancestry and time. Establishing themes in the first poem (ironically titled after an old railway slogan, “Look Ahead-Look South”), Giscombe looks back to Birmingham, Ala., from a vantage point in the North (…) A diffuse, open technique avoids the hazard Giscombe identifies as “aimless description” and is able to take in a great deal of material, mimicking the processes of memory.” – Publisher’s Weekly

Genres: Poetry

63 pages, Hardcover

First published August 1, 1994

Reviews

[Paula Koneazny · Rating 4 out of 5]

Part two of a four part series that began with Practical Geography, followed by Here, Giscome Road and finally Prairie Style. I love Giscombe's poetry, his multi-faceted investigations of places, poetics, culture and race, with healthy doses of music and architecture, and numerous wildlife sightings interjected for amplification.The poems of Here peregrinate between Dayton, Ohio and Birmingham, Alabama, along rivers and railroads, on trains and bicycles while Giscombe investigates the palaver, the surfaces, and the edges of large swathes of (and particular locales in )a post-pastoral American landscape. He takes the "long view" while taking a close look at his environs and ponders how value is assigned. His is "the way in & further in" that balances "on the remotest edge/ of description."