It Becomes You

Book excerpt: "Dobby Gibson's poetry . . . is equal parts tender, triumphant, exhilarating, disturbing, and thought provoking: it's fantastic." (The Corresponder) * Shortlisted for the Believer Poetry Award * From the backs of the books I love and am terrified by, the great thinkers stare back at me with little encouragement. I am prepared to follow them anywhere! —from "Ago" Meditative, lyrical, aphoristic, and always leavened with a wry wit, the poems in Dobby Gibson's It Becomes You explore the divergent conditions by which we're perpetually defined—the daily weather, the fluctuations of the Dow, the growth of a cancer cell, the politics of the day. What surrounds us becomes us, Gibson suggests, in a book that will ultimately become you.