Robert Gibbs
Biography
Robert Gibbs - Photo Courtesy of Author
Robert Gibbs is a poet, novelist, editor, and critic born in Saint John, NB in 1930. After completing a B.A. at the University of New Brunswick (UNB) in 1951, Gibbs studied abroad until he returned to UNB in 1963, at which time he became a professor. After seeing a number of works published in The Fiddlehead during his undergraduate years, Gibbs was showcased in Fred Cogswell’s Five New Brunswick Poets in 1962. As a member of the Bliss Carman Poetry Society, Gibbs found mentors such as Alden Nowlan, Fred Cogswell, and Alfred Bailey who helped define his literary work. Since 1968, Gibbs has published nine collections of poetry, and has written a number of short stories and novels. Gibbs worked for UNB for over 25 years, publishing a number of works and teaching countless undergraduate and graduate courses until his retirement in 1989, at which time he was named Professor Emeritus.
Gibbs currently lives in Fredericton, NB.
For more exhaustive biographical information, feel free to the visit the New Brunswick Literary Encyclopedia.
Gibbs currently lives in Fredericton, NB.
For more exhaustive biographical information, feel free to the visit the New Brunswick Literary Encyclopedia.
Light trims the white edges of the bay,
Limestone licked clean by salt-loving tongues;
Light determines the angles of the cliffs
And ciphers the incalculable long division
Of the tides. Light accounts all dimensions,
Carries its unknowns to highest powers
And final roots. Light polishes lens
And prism to catch an image of the utmost
Depth. Where light hails white on the shallow
Flats, dry air is quickened thick
With wings beating upward into heaven.
In such a radiant counterpoise,
An untimed instant, a herring school is netted,
Dense silver bellies half held to the light,
And quick mother-of-pearl skin wet wounds
Left by ebbing tide over the web of rock and pool.
Light waters the sea, solving thick-tongued thirst,
Breaks the salty crust of tideline, washes
The cry of seabird and ticking clock
Of the tide into a shining stillness.
White, white supersaturation!
Even the still wind is quieted
Caught in the rigging of the sun.
Now, one by one, seeded into the eye,
Rhomboid and pyramid, prism and sphere,
Red, green and yellow the crystal angels
Ascend, descend, singing until
Light itself is flooded and immersed
In sky, rock and tide breaking out.
Published in Five New Brunswick Poets: Elizabeth Brewster, Fred Cogswell, Robert Gibbs, Alden Nowlan, Kay Smith. (Fiddlehead Poetry Series, 1962).
Used with permission of the author.
Limestone licked clean by salt-loving tongues;
Light determines the angles of the cliffs
And ciphers the incalculable long division
Of the tides. Light accounts all dimensions,
Carries its unknowns to highest powers
And final roots. Light polishes lens
And prism to catch an image of the utmost
Depth. Where light hails white on the shallow
Flats, dry air is quickened thick
With wings beating upward into heaven.
In such a radiant counterpoise,
An untimed instant, a herring school is netted,
Dense silver bellies half held to the light,
And quick mother-of-pearl skin wet wounds
Left by ebbing tide over the web of rock and pool.
Light waters the sea, solving thick-tongued thirst,
Breaks the salty crust of tideline, washes
The cry of seabird and ticking clock
Of the tide into a shining stillness.
White, white supersaturation!
Even the still wind is quieted
Caught in the rigging of the sun.
Now, one by one, seeded into the eye,
Rhomboid and pyramid, prism and sphere,
Red, green and yellow the crystal angels
Ascend, descend, singing until
Light itself is flooded and immersed
In sky, rock and tide breaking out.
Published in Five New Brunswick Poets: Elizabeth Brewster, Fred Cogswell, Robert Gibbs, Alden Nowlan, Kay Smith. (Fiddlehead Poetry Series, 1962).
Used with permission of the author.
Critical Analysis: Beyond Prismatic Perception: Light-play in Robert Gibbs' "An Untimed Instant"
John Hatfield (for ENGL 3403: Canadian Poetry)
In his essay “Going Home,” award-winning Canadian poet Tim Lilburn suggests that poets strive to “know the names for things as a minimum” (182) – that is, to understand the natural world outside of human self-knowledge and appropriations. Looking at Robert Gibbs' early poem “An Untimed Instant,” there occurs a similar study using light, with the poem revealing both the scientific and intangible properties of light that conflict to create an “untimed instan[ce]” (13). Ultimately, Gibbs looks at the relationship between scientific and human perception.
Gibbs begins with an analysis of how light works, determining “the angles of the cliffs” (3) and how light “polishes lens / And prisms to catch an image of the utmost / Depth” (7-9). The awareness of light, shade, and form is more commonly associated with visual art, and Gibbs emphasizes this conception of the visual through lighting. While Gibbs stresses the complexity of our scientific understanding of sight through light, he also finds simplicity in “shallow / Flats” (9-10) where light is white and pure, not subjected to an interminable barrage of prisms and lens. When the land and sea collide, white foam is created which gives the speaker a moment of clarity. This also speaks to Gibbs' use of the New Brunswick landscape as a place of comfort and familiarity.
Gibbs uses the second stanza to reply to the observation of light in the first stanza. The herring caught in a net reveal “dense silver bellies half held to the light” (14), offering a “radiant counterpoise” (12) to the ocean that is largely unreceptive to light and human knowledge. The beauty of the silver fish is an example of how “light waters the sea, solving thick-tongued thirst” (17). The use of alliteration stresses this sensuous metaphor while exploring the metaphysical nature of perception. The speaker's search for knowledge is aided by the sunlight, which penetrates the sea and illuminates meanings which are otherwise hidden and unavailable to human perception. When the tide collides with the shore, the process creates a “supersaturation” (21) of white light that allows the speaker to develop a clearer understanding of the world.
The poem culminates in a breakdown of perception, with Gibbs creating a deliberately paced account of the human eye stimulated by light in order to explore a more abstract understanding of perception:
Rhomboid and pyramid, prism and sphere
Red, green, and yellow the crystal angels
Ascend, descend, singing until
Light itself is flooded and immersed
In sky, rock and tide breaking out (25-9).
The poem lists basic understandings of vision and light while using metaphor to explore what cannot be scientifically measured, such as personal or spiritual responses to colour. The suggestion that light can be “immersed” (28) gives the natural world a liquid quality, and separates light from the physical, until human eyes transmit the light particles received by the ocular nerves, combining the object and light, the physical and the metaphysical. The “untimed instant” (13) occurs earlier, when the physical and spiritual combine to offer a more complete understanding of the natural world, despite the limitations of human perception.
Works Cited (for analysis):
Gibbs, Robert. “An Untimed Instant.” Five New Brunswick Poets: Elizabeth Brewster, Fred Cogswell, Robert Gibbs, Alden Nowlan, Kay Smith. Fredericton, NB: Fiddlehead Poetry Series, 1962.
Lilburn, Tim. “Going Home.” Going Home: Essays. Toronto: House of Anansi, 2008. 169-182.
In his essay “Going Home,” award-winning Canadian poet Tim Lilburn suggests that poets strive to “know the names for things as a minimum” (182) – that is, to understand the natural world outside of human self-knowledge and appropriations. Looking at Robert Gibbs' early poem “An Untimed Instant,” there occurs a similar study using light, with the poem revealing both the scientific and intangible properties of light that conflict to create an “untimed instan[ce]” (13). Ultimately, Gibbs looks at the relationship between scientific and human perception.
Gibbs begins with an analysis of how light works, determining “the angles of the cliffs” (3) and how light “polishes lens / And prisms to catch an image of the utmost / Depth” (7-9). The awareness of light, shade, and form is more commonly associated with visual art, and Gibbs emphasizes this conception of the visual through lighting. While Gibbs stresses the complexity of our scientific understanding of sight through light, he also finds simplicity in “shallow / Flats” (9-10) where light is white and pure, not subjected to an interminable barrage of prisms and lens. When the land and sea collide, white foam is created which gives the speaker a moment of clarity. This also speaks to Gibbs' use of the New Brunswick landscape as a place of comfort and familiarity.
Gibbs uses the second stanza to reply to the observation of light in the first stanza. The herring caught in a net reveal “dense silver bellies half held to the light” (14), offering a “radiant counterpoise” (12) to the ocean that is largely unreceptive to light and human knowledge. The beauty of the silver fish is an example of how “light waters the sea, solving thick-tongued thirst” (17). The use of alliteration stresses this sensuous metaphor while exploring the metaphysical nature of perception. The speaker's search for knowledge is aided by the sunlight, which penetrates the sea and illuminates meanings which are otherwise hidden and unavailable to human perception. When the tide collides with the shore, the process creates a “supersaturation” (21) of white light that allows the speaker to develop a clearer understanding of the world.
The poem culminates in a breakdown of perception, with Gibbs creating a deliberately paced account of the human eye stimulated by light in order to explore a more abstract understanding of perception:
Rhomboid and pyramid, prism and sphere
Red, green, and yellow the crystal angels
Ascend, descend, singing until
Light itself is flooded and immersed
In sky, rock and tide breaking out (25-9).
The poem lists basic understandings of vision and light while using metaphor to explore what cannot be scientifically measured, such as personal or spiritual responses to colour. The suggestion that light can be “immersed” (28) gives the natural world a liquid quality, and separates light from the physical, until human eyes transmit the light particles received by the ocular nerves, combining the object and light, the physical and the metaphysical. The “untimed instant” (13) occurs earlier, when the physical and spiritual combine to offer a more complete understanding of the natural world, despite the limitations of human perception.
Works Cited (for analysis):
Gibbs, Robert. “An Untimed Instant.” Five New Brunswick Poets: Elizabeth Brewster, Fred Cogswell, Robert Gibbs, Alden Nowlan, Kay Smith. Fredericton, NB: Fiddlehead Poetry Series, 1962.
Lilburn, Tim. “Going Home.” Going Home: Essays. Toronto: House of Anansi, 2008. 169-182.
Bibliography
Primary Sources:
Cockburn, Robert H, and Robert J. Gibbs. Ninety Seasons: Modern Poems from the Maritimes. Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1974.
Gibbs, Robert. A Dog in a Dream. Fredericton, N.B: New Brunswick Chapbooks, 1971.
---. A Kind of Wakefulness. Fredericton, N.B: Fiddlehead Poetry Books, 1973.
---. All Things Considered. Ottawa: Oberon Press, 2013.
---. A Mouth Organ for Angels. Ottawa: Oberon, 1984.
---. All This Night Long. Fredericton, N.B.: Fiddlehead Poetry Books, 1978.
---. Angels Watch Do Keep. Ottawa: Oberon, 1997.
---. Driving to Our Edge. Ottawa: Oberon, 2003.
---, ed. Early Poems. By Alden Nowlan. Fredericton NB: Fiddlehead Poetry Books, 1983.
---. Earth Aches. Fredericton, N.B: Wild East, 1991.
---. Earth Charms Heard so Early. Fredericton, N.B: Fiddlehead Poetry Books, 1970.
---. “English Poetry in New Brunswick, 1940-1982.” A Literary and Linguistic History of New Brunswick. Ed. W.R. Gair. Fredericton, NB: Goose Lane, 1986. 125-44.
---. I've Always Felt Sorry for Decimals. Ottawa: Oberon Press, 1978.
---. Kindly Light. Ottawa: Oberon Press, 2007.
---. The Road from Here. Fredericton, N.B: New Brunswick Poetry Chapbooks, University of New Brunswick, 1968.
---. “Three Decades and a Bit Under the Elms: A Fragmentary Memoir.” Essays on Canadian Writing 31 (1985): 231-9. EBSCO.
---. The Tongue Still Dances: Poems New and Selected. Fredericton, N.B: Fiddlehead Poetry Books, 1985.
---, and Brian Bartlett. The Essential Robert Gibbs. Erin, Ont: Porcupine's Quill, 2012.
Secondary Sources:
Bauer, Nancy. “‘Coming Up True.’ Review of Driving to Our Edge, by Robert Gibbs.”Fiddlehead 222 (2004): 109-112. ProQuest.
Colford, Ian. “Round and Round We Go: Review of Kindly Light by Robert Gibbs.” Fiddlehead 237 (2008): 104-5.
Dorscht, Susan Rudy. “A Space to Play In; Or, Telling the Whole Story: The Recent Poetry of Robert Gibbs.” Canadian Literature 116 (1988): 87-93. Literature Online.
Epstein, Ronald Charles “Review of ‘Kindly Light’, by Robert Gibbs.” Prairie Fire Review of Books. 8 June 2009. Prairie Fire.
Engel, Marian. “Be Grateful for Pompman and Hutchie: Review of I’ve Always Felt Sorry for Decimals by Robert Gibbs.” The Globe and Mail 7 Oct. 1978: 43.
Lane, M. Travis. “The ‘Night’ Voices of Robert Gibbs.” Fiddlehead 220 (2004): 149-51.Literature Online.
Lane, M. Travis “Roads Round About Here: The Poetry of Robert Gibbs.” The Humanities Association Bulletin 23.4 (1972): 47-54. MLA International Bibliography.
Mundy, Mary-Ruth. “Review of All This Night Long, by Robert Gibbs” Canadian Book Review Annual (1978): 111. Literature Online.
Nowlan, Alden. “Review of ‘I’ve Always Felt Sorry for Decimals’, by Robert Gibbs.” Telegraph-Journal (Saint John, NB) 2 Dec. 1978: 7. ProQuest.
Nowlan, Alden, and Robert J. Gibbs. An Exchange of Gifts: Poems New and Selected. Toronto, Canada: Irwin Pub, 1985.
Pacey, Michael. "'One Prolonged Song:' The Metaphysical Poetry of Robert Gibbs." Parallel Universe: the poetries of New Brunswick. Ed. Shane Neilson and Sue Sinclair, Victoria: Frog Hollow Press, 2018. 140-148.
“Robert Gibbs.” The Oxford Companion to Canadian Literature. 2nd ed. Ed. Eugene Benson and William Toye. Toronto: Oxford UP, 1997. 460.
Tremblay, Tony. The Fiddlehead Moment. Montreal: McGill-Queen's UP, 2019. 5-208.
Cockburn, Robert H, and Robert J. Gibbs. Ninety Seasons: Modern Poems from the Maritimes. Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1974.
Gibbs, Robert. A Dog in a Dream. Fredericton, N.B: New Brunswick Chapbooks, 1971.
---. A Kind of Wakefulness. Fredericton, N.B: Fiddlehead Poetry Books, 1973.
---. All Things Considered. Ottawa: Oberon Press, 2013.
---. A Mouth Organ for Angels. Ottawa: Oberon, 1984.
---. All This Night Long. Fredericton, N.B.: Fiddlehead Poetry Books, 1978.
---. Angels Watch Do Keep. Ottawa: Oberon, 1997.
---. Driving to Our Edge. Ottawa: Oberon, 2003.
---, ed. Early Poems. By Alden Nowlan. Fredericton NB: Fiddlehead Poetry Books, 1983.
---. Earth Aches. Fredericton, N.B: Wild East, 1991.
---. Earth Charms Heard so Early. Fredericton, N.B: Fiddlehead Poetry Books, 1970.
---. “English Poetry in New Brunswick, 1940-1982.” A Literary and Linguistic History of New Brunswick. Ed. W.R. Gair. Fredericton, NB: Goose Lane, 1986. 125-44.
---. I've Always Felt Sorry for Decimals. Ottawa: Oberon Press, 1978.
---. Kindly Light. Ottawa: Oberon Press, 2007.
---. The Road from Here. Fredericton, N.B: New Brunswick Poetry Chapbooks, University of New Brunswick, 1968.
---. “Three Decades and a Bit Under the Elms: A Fragmentary Memoir.” Essays on Canadian Writing 31 (1985): 231-9. EBSCO.
---. The Tongue Still Dances: Poems New and Selected. Fredericton, N.B: Fiddlehead Poetry Books, 1985.
---, and Brian Bartlett. The Essential Robert Gibbs. Erin, Ont: Porcupine's Quill, 2012.
Secondary Sources:
Bauer, Nancy. “‘Coming Up True.’ Review of Driving to Our Edge, by Robert Gibbs.”Fiddlehead 222 (2004): 109-112. ProQuest.
Colford, Ian. “Round and Round We Go: Review of Kindly Light by Robert Gibbs.” Fiddlehead 237 (2008): 104-5.
Dorscht, Susan Rudy. “A Space to Play In; Or, Telling the Whole Story: The Recent Poetry of Robert Gibbs.” Canadian Literature 116 (1988): 87-93. Literature Online.
Epstein, Ronald Charles “Review of ‘Kindly Light’, by Robert Gibbs.” Prairie Fire Review of Books. 8 June 2009. Prairie Fire.
Engel, Marian. “Be Grateful for Pompman and Hutchie: Review of I’ve Always Felt Sorry for Decimals by Robert Gibbs.” The Globe and Mail 7 Oct. 1978: 43.
Lane, M. Travis. “The ‘Night’ Voices of Robert Gibbs.” Fiddlehead 220 (2004): 149-51.Literature Online.
Lane, M. Travis “Roads Round About Here: The Poetry of Robert Gibbs.” The Humanities Association Bulletin 23.4 (1972): 47-54. MLA International Bibliography.
Mundy, Mary-Ruth. “Review of All This Night Long, by Robert Gibbs” Canadian Book Review Annual (1978): 111. Literature Online.
Nowlan, Alden. “Review of ‘I’ve Always Felt Sorry for Decimals’, by Robert Gibbs.” Telegraph-Journal (Saint John, NB) 2 Dec. 1978: 7. ProQuest.
Nowlan, Alden, and Robert J. Gibbs. An Exchange of Gifts: Poems New and Selected. Toronto, Canada: Irwin Pub, 1985.
Pacey, Michael. "'One Prolonged Song:' The Metaphysical Poetry of Robert Gibbs." Parallel Universe: the poetries of New Brunswick. Ed. Shane Neilson and Sue Sinclair, Victoria: Frog Hollow Press, 2018. 140-148.
“Robert Gibbs.” The Oxford Companion to Canadian Literature. 2nd ed. Ed. Eugene Benson and William Toye. Toronto: Oxford UP, 1997. 460.
Tremblay, Tony. The Fiddlehead Moment. Montreal: McGill-Queen's UP, 2019. 5-208.
