Giscome Road (American Literature (Dalkey Archive))

Poet Cecil Giscombe is known for his exceptional meditations on place. His long poem, "Giscome Road," examines locations in northern Canada that are named after his relative John Robert Giscome, a 19th-century Jamaican miner and explorer.

Giscombe's book--part map, poem, illustration--features his eccentric style in expressing language. In print, his writing occasionally looks like journal notes, with altered spellings accentuating the construction of the line and the meaning of the phrase ("I am a place, she sd, nowhere."). Yet even with alterations, the poems are clear and visionary--a stream of family that the poet never knew: "And water has got its way: /the name rode along being / a commotion."

The long poem is broken into five sections that each represent a portion of the poet's journey into the past. And like any search for one's past, "place" reveals more about itself than about the bloodline of those who lived there: "no telling / how it appears, no word for the way blood arrives." Giscombe's words reveal an explorer-poet of great heart. --Susan Swartwout