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The Dance of No Hard Feelings
“Delirious! Adventure stories in the shape of poems.”—Laurie Anderson
“Bibbins . . . has the courage to stop, to pin down the always irrational present moment, and the reader is eager to follow, to inhale its scathing or enticing perfume. . . . A brilliant young poet.”—John Ashbery
"Those who will feel themselves spoken for by these poems have been hungrily awaiting this book." —Publishers Weekly, starred review
In his second collection, The Dance of No Hard Feelings, Lambda Award winner Mark Bibbins pressures language into a performance of surprising, invigorating movements across syntax and line. Vulnerable, yet suspicious and sharp-witted, he responds to a nation responsible for and besieged by a bankrupted presidency, employing concise lyrics and longer sequences while in the process inventing a new form, the exploded double haiku.
Incited by progressive blogs, ad campaigns, elegy, and Eros, Bibbins addresses environmental catastrophe and grotesque political posturing in our nascent millennium, as well as the corporate media's willingness to front for the worst offenders as it both panders and condescends to audiences drunk on doublespeak.
These are songs of passionate and ambivalence sung in a dark time.
Wrong decisions are harder to make than most
people realize, tears flying sideways in a gale.
We swerve in the road so as not to hit dead things
but I used to know someone who did the opposite.
He liked to drive through them. Stars are most
serious when seen from the back of a pickup truck
while very very drunk and if someone kisses you
there it doesn’t count. . . .
Mark Bibbins teaches in the graduate writing programs at The New School and Columbia University, and edits the poetry section of The Awl. He lives in New York City.
“Bibbins . . . has the courage to stop, to pin down the always irrational present moment, and the reader is eager to follow, to inhale its scathing or enticing perfume. . . . A brilliant young poet.”—John Ashbery
"Those who will feel themselves spoken for by these poems have been hungrily awaiting this book." —Publishers Weekly, starred review
In his second collection, The Dance of No Hard Feelings, Lambda Award winner Mark Bibbins pressures language into a performance of surprising, invigorating movements across syntax and line. Vulnerable, yet suspicious and sharp-witted, he responds to a nation responsible for and besieged by a bankrupted presidency, employing concise lyrics and longer sequences while in the process inventing a new form, the exploded double haiku.
Incited by progressive blogs, ad campaigns, elegy, and Eros, Bibbins addresses environmental catastrophe and grotesque political posturing in our nascent millennium, as well as the corporate media's willingness to front for the worst offenders as it both panders and condescends to audiences drunk on doublespeak.
These are songs of passionate and ambivalence sung in a dark time.
Wrong decisions are harder to make than most
people realize, tears flying sideways in a gale.
We swerve in the road so as not to hit dead things
but I used to know someone who did the opposite.
He liked to drive through them. Stars are most
serious when seen from the back of a pickup truck
while very very drunk and if someone kisses you
there it doesn’t count. . . .
Mark Bibbins teaches in the graduate writing programs at The New School and Columbia University, and edits the poetry section of The Awl. He lives in New York City.
- GenresPoetry21st Century
96 pages, Paperback
First published September 1, 2009
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
June 6, 2020
This is the third Bibbins collection that I've read and by far the weakest. His extraordinary talent for deft word play shines through, but the images are extraordinarily muddled and/or undeveloped and/or have so much space between them that the lacy filaments connecting them tear free and the words fly loose untethered. I much prefer the more precise razor-sharp control displayed in his other collections.
January 23, 2023
In 2010-ish I had chosen a poem of Mark Bibbin's to memorize that I had read my college library's issue of The Paris Review: Horoscopes without Telescopes.
I still run through it from time to time and a line or stanza will be stuck in my head for a while. I'm glad to have finally gotten around to reading the rest of the collection that poem comes from. Felt like navigating someone else's dreamscape and I enjoyed the way Bibbins explored form in his poetry.
I still run through it from time to time and a line or stanza will be stuck in my head for a while. I'm glad to have finally gotten around to reading the rest of the collection that poem comes from. Felt like navigating someone else's dreamscape and I enjoyed the way Bibbins explored form in his poetry.
March 31, 2014
When I get a literary crush I tend to fall hard. And I’ve fallen hard for Mark Bibbins. I heard him read at AWP this year and I couldn’t stop writing down the nuggets. I love nuggets. And Bibbins is a king.
Some of my favorite moments:
“Europe looks huge
but we’ve done bigger”
“One thing usually true about history,
it’s embarrassing.”
“abstraction factory.”
“Here’s another rack on which to hang
your critical coat.”
“I’m feeling positively artisanal.”
“I’m letting you pretend you’re still
the sun, drawing an infernal line through everything.”
“we’re off
to the theoretical zoo.”
“City is hyperbole as ocean is hyperbole
as desert is definitely hyperbole.”
“Acting offended is the best offense.”
“Finally all the verbs gave up,
agreeing to throw their
weight behind to be.”
Some of my favorite moments:
“Europe looks huge
but we’ve done bigger”
“One thing usually true about history,
it’s embarrassing.”
“abstraction factory.”
“Here’s another rack on which to hang
your critical coat.”
“I’m feeling positively artisanal.”
“I’m letting you pretend you’re still
the sun, drawing an infernal line through everything.”
“we’re off
to the theoretical zoo.”
“City is hyperbole as ocean is hyperbole
as desert is definitely hyperbole.”
“Acting offended is the best offense.”
“Finally all the verbs gave up,
agreeing to throw their
weight behind to be.”
November 25, 2014
There are a handful of poems in this book I find myself going back to and back to and back to, like a skipping record, when you realize the scratch that creates the skip is giving you some new magic, more than just the regular playback.
Here are a handful of them:
• There is No You Are Everywhere
• Blindside
• When they Are Dying They Don't Know What to Do
• Suicides of the 90's
and • The Devil You Don't
– p.shaw
Here are a handful of them:
• There is No You Are Everywhere
• Blindside
• When they Are Dying They Don't Know What to Do
• Suicides of the 90's
and • The Devil You Don't
– p.shaw
October 4, 2016
I was attracted by blurb, but he does that annoying thing with deliberate non-sequiturs that always strikes me as pretentiously "poetic". I did like "Concerning the Land to the South of our Neighbors to the North," so maybe it deserves another try.
December 9, 2009
I'm from Manhattan! I'm from Brooklyn! GET IT? I'm from NYC-------greatest city ever.
June 6, 2017
Often more mechanical than a dance, often no feelings at all. But some true dazzlers like "Prophylaxis" and "A Perfect Day."
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews