{"id":5210,"date":"2016-04-12T20:50:25","date_gmt":"2016-04-12T20:50:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artvilla.com\/plt\/?p=5210"},"modified":"2016-04-14T20:11:03","modified_gmt":"2016-04-14T20:11:03","slug":"miriam-c-jacobs-reviews-all-the-babble-of-the-souk","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artvilla.com\/plt\/miriam-c-jacobs-reviews-all-the-babble-of-the-souk\/","title":{"rendered":"Miriam C Jacobs Reviews All the Babble of the Souk."},"content":{"rendered":"

Poet Robin Ouzman Hislop\u2019s first full-length collection, All the Babble of the Souk, is appropriately titled. With a remarkably consistent ear for the market\u2019s noise, for \u201c[t]he broken lights of the bazaar\/spangled] with glistening promise\/in the eyes of the dusky beggar \u2026\u201d (Laminations in Lacquer ) Hislop\u2019s poems, many of them cinematic-style montages of sounds and images, show us the metaphoric souk of the world, on the beach or in the street, its glitter, its sadness, its ragtag glory:
\n 
\n\u201cpets, flower pots framed captive in a moment
\noutside the house of the painter, a robot
\nin chains with an alms bowl\u201d (\u201cDepartures\u201d)
\n 
\nThese impressions are not confined to the scenic. Individuals, too, flash like rich arcades:
\n 
\n\u201cthere is not time enough to love
\nbefore the tram whisks her away
\na creature of the costume of the moment
\nin a parade of parts.\u201d (\u201cIn the fish-eye window\u201d)
\n 
\nSo marked is Hislop\u2019s interest in the external world, readers may long for a glimpse of the speaker. It comes rarely. There are one or two musings on the phenomenon and surprise of feeling oneself age, the odd disjointing of it, but otherwise these poems proclaim their perhaps unique impersonality. In \u201cLaminations in Lacquer\u201d we sight what is, perhaps, the poet, but in third person, one who rises, observes, and then folds in at last with the \u201cthrong\u201d:
\n 
\n“Below the rift of its eye
\nthe sealed beak that will open
\ngleams on the lee \u2026
\nin a room that roams without corners
\nhe must rise with a chalice of blood for lips of shades
\nwhere the vertigo edge of the flower distills the dish
\ntogether with the quantities of immeasurable throng
\non watery groves billowing with ivy bowers
\nsprung over hidden lairs of concealed hoards.
\nNight begins and the dogs draw nigh
\nscavenging for scraps
\nyapping at the walker\u2019s naked ankles
\nin the dust of unknown alleys.”
\n 
\nAmong other reoccurring themes \u2013 shadows, mirrors, the moon \u2013 is Hislop\u2019s interest in physics. In a variety of contexts he reflects on time and infinity, the imagination-daunting galaxies, quantum theory and space:
\n 
\n\u201cMan cannot live on myth alone
\nhe shall earn his soil somehow, between
\nthe Big Bang, the Big Slam ….\u201d
\n 
\nOne admirable quality in this work is that souk places us firmly in the precariousness of the current moment in history. These poems are exactly right for the age, and who we are now, those of us born 1945-1960, with our particular view of past and present, our grasp of the sciences and technologies that have overtaken the known world in our lifetimes.
\n 
\n\u201cThe world is a patchwork quilt,\u201d Hislop concludes in \u201cLucky hat day,\u201d
\n\u2018stitched up to the hilt its seams\/which we quarter in our dreams
\non which our edifice is built \u2026\u201d <\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\n\"Jacobs<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nMIRIAM C. JACOBS is a alumnus of the University of Chicago and teaches college writing, literature and humanities. Jacobs is the editor of Eyedrum Periodically<\/a>, the art\/literature journal of Eyedrum Art & Music Gallery, Atlanta. Her poetry has appeared in Jewish Literary Journal, The East Coast Literary Review, Record Magazine, The Camel Saloon, Bluestem: the Art and Literary Journal of Eastern Illinois University, The King\u2019s English, and Oklahoma Today,<\/em> among other publications. Her chapbook of poetry, The Naked Prince,<\/em> was published by Fort!\/Da? Books in September 2013.<\/strong>
\n 
\nwww.facebook.com\/PoetryLifeTimes<\/a>
\nwww.facebook.com\/Artvilla.com<\/a>
\n robin@artvilla.com<\/a>
\neditor@artvilla.com<\/a><\/strong>
\n 
\n goodreads.com\/author\/show\/Robin Ouzman Hislop<\/a><\/strong>
\nhttp:\/\/www.aquillrelle.com\/authorrobin.htm<\/a><\/strong>
\nhttp:\/\/www.amazon.com. All the Babble of the Souk. Robin Ouzman Hislop<\/a>
\nwww.lulu.com. All the Babble of the Souk. Robin Ouzman Hislop <\/a>
\nhttps:\/\/www.amazon.com\/author\/robinouzmanhislop<\/a>
\nhttp:\/\/www.innerchildpress.com\/robin-ouzman-hislop.All the Babble of the Souk<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

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Poet Robin Ouzman Hislop\u2019s first full-length collection, All the Babble of the Souk, is appropriately titled. With a remarkably consistent ear for the market\u2019s noise, for \u201c[t]he broken lights of the bazaar\/spangled] with glistening promise\/in the eyes of the dusky beggar \u2026\u201d (Laminations in Lacquer ) Hislop\u2019s poems, many of them cinematic-style montages of sounds … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,572,592,366,401,43,584,52],"tags":[654,198,18,136,3,147],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artvilla.com\/plt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5210"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artvilla.com\/plt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artvilla.com\/plt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artvilla.com\/plt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artvilla.com\/plt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5210"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.artvilla.com\/plt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5210\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5214,"href":"https:\/\/www.artvilla.com\/plt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5210\/revisions\/5214"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artvilla.com\/plt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5210"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artvilla.com\/plt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5210"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artvilla.com\/plt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5210"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}