Sheet Music

By Robert Gibb

In Gibb's second Autumn House Poetry collection, he finds sublime music in everyday city life. He offers a roadmap to hear the music of life and nature within the context of an industrial setting.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Autumn House Press
• Release date: Sep 9, 2021
• ISBN: 9781637680476

Robert Gibb

Robert Gibb is Lecturer in Sociology, University of Glasgow, UK. His research interests include asylum procedures, the state, borders and translation.

Book preview

THE MUSIC LESSON

for Matthew

Having just unpacked that violin

The color of casked brandy

And set it upright before him,

My son starts reciting the names

Of the parts he is learning,

Pointing each one out to his mother

As if tracing a splendid anatomy—

Neck, finger-board, bridge—

The shaped grain gleaming like parquetry

There by the parlor window

Where the words fall like light—

Body, peg-box, scroll—

The taut strings plinking one by one

As he fingers them

In an off-key pizzicato

And goes on with the naming—

Chin-rest and tail-piece—

The hours on their way towards him,

The bow he’ll soon be using

To kindle music from the chambered wood.

I

KITES

Come March we’d find them

In the five-and-dimes,

Furled tighter than umbrellas

About their slats, the