Smoke and Lilacs (trade paper)

Description

Smoke and Lilacsis full of play and shadow, whispered intimations of mortality and glances of humour, elegiac lyric playing against steely classicism, an easy modern vernacular eliding with timeless grace. Sibums meditative narratives move between worlds, modern and ancient, the state of our civic order and the realm of love. Human love and lust exist within the forces of empireRome or America. Men and women continue to ask of life from what god does it come, / To what serendipity does it go / if chance is all and all theres been? and the gods laugh at those who laugh at chance. Across centuries, voices create a complex music from their moments on earth, the echoes of their gossip in the rains cold light.Praise for Norm SibumA world is glimpsed from the corner of his eye, a multiplicity of voices is briefly overheard. From these Sibum has made a rough, durable fabric; he is a Browning for our times while at the same time having developed a voice that is completely his own.Marius Kociejowski