Sightlines

In SIGHTLINES, Robert Gibb takes the usual practice of Ekphrasis-the lyric recasting of artworks into words-and extends it across a range of visual material, including poems about artists, parallel narratives triggered by their works, and poems in which subject matter (clouds, birds, etc.) is a kind of identifying brand. There are first-person poems as well, taking in the poet's own history as art student and painter. "Don't look. See," the book tells us-sightlines being both the vantages and the lines of the poems themselves.