Rorschach Art Too

Stephen Gibsons poems are the work of a serious, intent, often appalled tourist. The word might look like a putdown, but his subject is the glamour and horror of history, and when it comes to the past, attentive tourism is the best that any of us can hope for. This tourists gaze if focused and fascinated, his tone is even and intelligent (as he has it in one poem, scared in the headlights, but the brain busy nonetheless), and his technique is all but flawless (unobtrusively so, a true case of art hiding art). Together the gaze, the subjects on which it alights, and the poets superlative skill add up to poems of astute, moving observation and often overwhelming authority. Dick Davis