Young Woman with a Cane

<p><i>Young Woman with a Cane</i> explores the social cultural and personal dimensions of feeling experience and thought. This new collection by Reginald Gibbons ranges from nature and ecological crises to human conflicts of migration self-determination ancient war and the corruption of political mores. In language intensified by strong rhythms figures and bounteous vocabulary the book presents short lyrics alongside satires laments and witness with subjects moving from elk in the Dakotas to underlings supporting knavish power from celebrating words as a kind of phonetic music to brief narratives of interaction and consciousness. Above all Gibbons's poems fluently and inventively articulate both directness and nuance. <p/>The long prose poem that gives the book its title and other pieces evoke the historical depths echoes and precedents of present-day life. Gradually the book provides energetic metaphorical and notional riffs on violence on wars both past and recent and ongoing as it satirizes the corrupted politics of our age. Yet it also presents tender sometimes melancholic treatments of everyday life. With a panoply of poetic forms marked throughout by a lively pleasure in the language and the lines Gibbons conjures an extensive range of story and experience feeling and thought.</p>