Book: Sky Lounge
Written by Mark Bibbins (Grey Wolf Press)
Reviewed by Erick Mertz

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Somewhere amid the variations of speech and music, a constant feud for the reader's ear arises. As pages begin to take hold, this clash turns to the heart of poet Mark Bibbins' work in Sky Lounge. Sounds of groupies droning in the halls meld in seamless time in with the thump of urban dance beats; stepping outside to the glen, the reader has attention drawn to the ground, where it is the sound of insects in the tall grass that is heard.

Seeking clarity, either with or from the clamor, is a pivotal theme to Sky Lounge. In "Euphorium" Bibbins writes: "I'm looking for something/ that's one-third comma, two-thirds question/ mark." This type of probing sense comes as it does here, on the written page as it does with the earth in "Continuity." Bibbins writes, "They scatter when/ they hear the caterpillars'/ grinding in the trees," proving it isn't so much the setting as its effect. Bibbins is an explorer whose love for the world is pliable, obsessed perhaps, with the dichotomy of a poet who must both surface and remain veiled to create. "Attire is protection, idiom, antagonism/ All photography depict the black fins/ of whales as they go under," he writes in "If Not to Speak," a metaphor, undoubtedly, for his own struggle with public and private speech.

The attention to details however small is what makes Sky Lounge the extraordinary read that it is. Bibbins has that rare and so delightful ability to deliver the narcotic verbal effect, then watch it as it takes inevitable hold on his captive reader. Throughout this collection his wit's pen is the deft guide to a room of another world.

© 2003 - Erick Mertz