Praise

What a joy it is to read Robert Gibb’s new and selected poems, chosen from thirty years of estimable work. He’s a writer in the proud tradition of Hugo, Levine, and Jarrell, possessing all of their striving for empathy, all of their tough musicality, all of their moral seriousness. This book is the legacy of a true master of the art. —David Wojahn

Through quietly intense, beautifully nuanced language, Gibb recovers and redeems a difficult past. Simultaneously direct and reflective, his narrative is infused, always, with a radiant lyricism. These are magnificent poems of survival, praise, and celebration. —Susan Ludvigson

One of the best poets now writing in America. —John Matthias, Notre Dame Review

A genius for lyric precision, a painter’s eye for detail…maybe the most impeccable ear for the music of the American language of any poet since Robert Frost. —Michael Simms, Vox Populi

Not since Philip Levine have we had a working-class stiff write such moving poems. —Maxine Kumin

Robert Gibb’s poems, deeply tied to the steel town of Homestead, Pennsylvania, and its past, tell the story of a life spent connected to place. Book by book, he has built a home before our eyes. Cumulatively, his poems become devotional. His real gift, though, is by embracing ugliness and beauty, industry and nature, he teases out and dissolves the line between them. This is a poet who has taken great care to do justice to life’s fullness and complexity. In Winter Fires, Robert Gibb has given us a world. —Bob Hicok