May 19, 2021
Unique. Confident. Lyrical. These are just three of the words that can be used to describe Elisha Gibson’s sterling debut chapbook, Fault/Freedom. This collection beautifully, painfully, yet, amazingly, also joyfully captures the vicissitudes of life.
In the engrossing poem, “A Little Thing,” Gibson writes about the speaker’s painful and formative childhood experience in almost cinematic detail:
I never asked why that man didn’t want our hands
on his window
My eyes were shining!
Lights of gold shone through bottles of green
and blue just out of reach,
a reach I never considered.
The store owner confronts the narrator and their three siblings, calls them “Dirty,” and uses his relative size and position to threaten them just for touching his window: “See, this man was tall, strong, and white.” Expertly deploying an apt comic book/film metaphor, Gibson effectively deploys a modern-day deus ex machina, “My pops swooped in,/ all superman, no cape.” The children are removed from the painful situation and their dad “started a game when just talking was enough,/I played, had fun, and tried to let this little thing go./ But if it is so little… why didn’t he want our hands on his window?” The narrator comes to a painful realization about American life, and Gibson captures that moment with a perfectly precise lyricism.
This vibrant chapbook also captures the feeling of radiant joy, especially in one of the standout poems in this collection, “Big Band Beach.” Gibson thrills with jazzy lines such as:
Piano play, discordant way, while I soak in azure sky.
Sun was high, his halo hung,
faint green,
round brilliant white,
round canary yellow,
that would bind you with delight.
“So Benign” is a haunting poem that also discusses music and its inherent power, specifically the heartbreaking protest song, “Strange Fruit.” In the right-hand margin, the word “lullaby” textually hangs suspended with one letter per line as it makes a political comment on the controlled, rhythmic language of this poem: “I’ve got strange fruit on my mind./ Bitter copper juice runs through hemp spun vine./ No words pierce my lips as they sway wind picked lines. Their feet bob and dip, ripened past their time.” In this collection, Gibson confronts the terrible legacy of racism as well as celebrates Billy Holiday’s groundbreaking song. It takes a true poet and visionary to craft a poem that tackles so much in ten perfect lines.
Another ekphrastic poem to be found in this collection is “Jerry, Know Tom.” In this poem, the speaker returns to their childhood watching cartoons, a favorite former pastime for many of us I am sure. Gibson repeats a refrain that almost becomes a mantra: “Lampshade overhead, the clumsy cat’s disguise. Cartoon and corn flakes for my youthful eyes.” Gibson jolts us out of this idyllic scene into the present reality of life in America: “You’d think we riot or get vest for the guns.” Gibson’s poetry keeps the reader on their literary toes.
This chapbook collection is an assured debut from a poet who has found their voice and undoubtedly has more to say as we wend our way through the twenty-first century. We, the American readers, will need a visionary like Gibson to show us life in all of its beauty and pain. With their precise, enviable wordcraft, Gibson will be that poet. Fault/Freedom is an exciting first step on their sure-to-be-incredible poetic journey.
Sean Hanrahan is a Philadelphian poet originally hailing from Dale City, Virginia. He is the author of the full-length collection Safer Behind Popcorn (read review here) (2019 Cajun Mutt Press) and the chapbooks Hardened Eyes on the Scan (2018 Moonstone Press) and Gay Cake (2020 Toho). He is currently at work on several literary projects as well as teaching a chapbook class. He currently serves on the Moonstone Press Editorial Board, is head poetry editor for Toho, and is workshop instructor for Green Street Poetry.