In some ways more of a glimpse-by-glimpse autobiography than a verse collection, the poems of Passport feel like a vivid, bumpy trek out of Newfoundland, by bus, boat, and ferry, into the very heart o
In some ways more of a glimpse-by-glimpse autobiography than a verse collection, the poems of Passport feel like a vivid, bumpy trek out of Newfoundland, by bus, boat, and ferry, into the very heart of Canada.
Born into a Island family, haunted by a cruel, redeeming, widow-making sea, Angela Hibbs transforms the plain, moving intervals and sometimes lurid bric-à-brac of a Canadian working class upbringing into something as gratifying as loose tobacco rolled into a mail-slot flier for smoking after a long day. With her mother, newly enlisted in The Canadian Forces and seeking a better life at a succession of mainland bases, the young poet finally escapes The Rock. She takes along her uprooted, meticulous gaze, memorably describing the peripatetic, close-quartered, nervous life of army families and their offspring.
Hibbs writes a nimble, sidelong poetry versed in the language of exits and pounced-on opportunities. With a talent for capturing the least obvious, most significant detail, Angela Hibbs transforms the plain matter-of-fact into something glistening and enduring.
Angela Hibbs's work has previously appeared in Exile, Room of One's Own, Matrix, Fireweed, and The Headlight Anthology. Born in Newfoundland, she has lived in most provinces and some states, and now lives in Montreal. Passport is her first full-length book.
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