Storms Beneath the Skin

By Regie Gibson

Regie Gibson's first full-length book of poetry. A collection of poems and chants which the critically acclaimed poet has been performing world-wide since 1996. This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0970801203
• ISBN13: 9780970801203
• Release Date: December 2000
• Publisher: Em Pr
• Length: 102 Pages
• Weight: 0.95 lbs.
• Dimensions: 8.0" x 0.5" x 8.0"

Customer Reviews

10+ stars**REALLY REAL

I had the pleasure of meeting Mr. Gibson and I own an autographed copy of his book. He is as real in person as he is on paper! His stage performance is enchanting. He seduces your thinking and leaves you speechlees.

too bad it only goes up to five

regie gibson's book was given to me as a gift. i doubt the person that gave me this knew how great a gift it was. i own more poetry than i can add on a calculator, and this book immediately took its place among my absolute favorite poetry collections and regie gibson is now one of my favorite contemporary poets. this man does incredible things with words; i'm astounded every time i read one of his poems (which is pretty often). if you buy any book at all, this should be it. you might even be able to make it a really amazing gift for someone who seems to have every book of poetry imaginable. (like me). this is too good of a secret to keep.

is kurt vonnegut ever wrong?

there's regie gibson performing, and there's regie gibson on the page. both are equally satisfying and leave you with chills tickling the nape of your neck. regie's words shiver with life on the page, sparking a restlessness on your lips to read aloud. his poems hold a magic the magnetizes your eyes to the words in a strange submission. it's like honey on your tongue. regie gibson's work is for anyone who looks for something fresh and invigorating, someone who knows art through words. you're a fool if you don't own this.

BUY THIS BOOK

One of the most beautiful things in the world is to see Regie Gibson perform. His book of poetry is another. I can't do any justice by trying to explain. So buy his poetry, see him perform and find out for yourself.

Poetry Beyond the Speed of Sound

The initial release of EM Press did not simply fly a few feet for a few seconds; it broke free from the earth’s gravity and flew to the moon. This is like NASA, instead shooting mammals into orbit, making it to the moon on the first try. Storms Beneath the Skin is Regie Gibson’s long overdue first poetry book. The meandering Slam minstrel has not stood still long enough in the last ten years for his words to be crystallized in print. For the poet described by Kurt Vonnegut as singing and chanting "for all of us," Storms Beneath the Skin represents an audacious and auspicious debut in print. Behind the cover design by Gregory Harms featuring four epidermal close-ups is the first collection of poetry from one entrenched in the pantheon of Slam Poetry. The greatest poetry is elusively familiar, spiritually sensual, and harrowingly gentle. The 38 selections in Storms Beneath the Skin are divided into five sections: Chants, an invocation, coos, suite, and Canticles and Curses. Storms irradiates with dangerous diversity of word and theme. The initial poem, "Alchemy," is a succinct critique of tone-deaf academicians who reduce language to grammar in the same way materialists reduce spirit to matterIn great poetry, language startles us, gyrating in new combinations: "cotton-myth our stories"; "daughter of desert/and dostoyevski"; "sightraped hunter" and "musebruise." Storms startles us, from the chants to the haikus: u came on snake wings u red turjid gitar licks u left d same way.The Old Guard snivels at the New Poetic Proletarians like Regie Gibson. The Old Guard doubts that the word can make the transition from the stage to page. The fireworks on stage, they believe, conceal deep deficiencies in poetic formation. "When you [Regie] perform," writes Vonnegut, "you are supersonic and in the stratosphere, where you can see that the earth really is a ball, moist, blue-green." Audiences in the Slam World are dazzled by Gibson’s "bewitchingly/bleedin" performance of the "eulogy of jimi Christ," an ode to Jimi Hendrix. The Old Guard views Slam Poetry as a mutation of their hallowed Tradition of Pretentiousness and Less Than Effusive Presentations of the Word. The Old Guard is as suspicious of the Stage Word having an afterlife as Page Word as they are as the spirit existing outside the body after death. Storms Beneath the Skin demonstrates that Word on Stage can exist and yes flourish on the page. Stage performance only enhances the lightening and lilting of Gibson’s poetry. As Vonnegut says: "To become a great artist, one must penetrate the sound barrier of secret self-pity, and the hate and fear that justifies." Storms Beneath the Skin easily breaks the sound barrier. The only question remaining is what happens to poetry when it exceeds the speed of light.