Sunday 1 March 2015

Gustaf Sobin

Gustaf Sobin, born in Boston in 1935 actually spend most of his life in France. He made the acquaintance of the French poet Rene Char in 1962 and soon after decided to move to the country himself. Apart from his poetry he also published novels, essays and worked as a translator.
As Paul Hoover points out Sobin held to “an organic theory of composition”, which was often focused on the sonic aspects of language. His poetry is marked by heavy use enjambment as well as assonance and consonance. Although he did not belong to a particular school of poetry he was heavily influenced by Robert Duncan and George Oppen.

Hoover includes includes 3 of Sobin’s poems in his anthology: “Out of the Identical”, “What the Music Wants” and “Eleven Rock Poems”.

I found his poems a little bit harder to come by online. Here are just two sources I found:

         
~ - ~
                                                           
Out of the dissimilar
After Gustaf Sobin

A hand’s
writing the
sheet is
wavy

with
its perspiration
wrung
out of tight

knots fingers
dug deep into
soft folds
of fabric

held
fast kinetic
loops
pressure marks

(ink bleeding)
stains as
caesura

hovering
over

interpretation



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