Overview

Dibs: A Train of Thought takes readers on a breathless, witty, whimsical, and ultimately wise journey through the wild and wildly unpredictable experience of being a self, a mind, on the move. Part epic, part aphorism, stacked with dogs, spiders, snakes, odd facts, childhood memories, and observations, Clint McCown's slyly philosophical boxcars carry us into the domain of mystery and call into question the borders between now and then, reader and writer, self and others. (Kathleen Graber)

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9781968783037

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Reviews

Clint McCown's new book-length poem, Dibs: A Train of Thought, inspired by the works of his early friend and mentor A.R. Ammons, takes its readers on a breathless, witty, whimsical, and ultimately wise journey through the wild and wildly unpredictable experience of being a self, a mind, on the move. Part epic, part aphorism, stacked with dogs, spiders, snakes, odd facts, childhood memories, and observations, McCown's slyly philosophical boxcars carry us into the domain of mystery and call into question the borders between now and then, reader and writer, self and others. Where do all the birds go away to die? What is the difference between a wish and a hope? From the moment we leave the station, we are held in a mesmerizing rhythm of speculation. What is the difference between a window and a mirror?This is a voyage no one should miss! ―Kathleen Graber, author of The Eternal City, National Book Award finalist The journey we are taken on by Clint McCown is the imprint of a deep mind thinking hard and long, and at times, quite beautifully, about our world and the living beings within it. He is just that sort of strange, brilliant, and humble mind needed to engine onward through insight and lyric and all that language can do to lay down a passage through a well-lived life. ―Julia Levine, author of Lullaby for the Sixth Extinction Edgar Allan Poe believed that a lyric poem cannot sustain the necessary intensity beyond a length of 100 lines. Here in Dibs, Clint McCown begs to differ, offering us a strand of figurative and epiphanic moments on a very compelling discursive thread. I use the term discursive in the best sense of that word; Dibs is a circuitous, meandering meditation on common human experience that ultimately exposes McCown's uncommonly perceptive and lyrical poetic sensibility. To my mind, his mind proves to be great good company, and his book is a rich, lively, unpredictable journey well worth embarking on. ―Mark Cox, author of Readiness and Knowing Clint McCown's original and magnificent Dibs explores how ""the mind expands / from what to why,"" while adding a deftly quiet drama, for McCown is a kind of poetic ""hoarder"" countering the way the world is ""always / falling/away from us."" With an engaging conversational style along a narrow ""train of thought,"" Dibs carries us through science and cosmology, the nature of language and metaphor, dream and reality, and from trailer parks to East Germany, Hamlet to Buddhism, and so much more, all the time worrying about everyday issues such as the right tape to fix plumbing. It is his voice, and an impeccable sense of the short line that engages us as if we were sitting across the table in a pub, calling out ""dibs"" on some subject, sometimes revealing autobiographical details, always weaving in a stream of conscious manner, and yet always hoping for a ""unified theory / of everything."" As he tells us at one point, ""starting anywhere / you can go / anywhere,"" and we do, to a whole new vison of what poetry can do. ―Richard Jackson, author of Footprints and The Heart as Framed: New and Select Poems

Author Information

Clint McCown has published six previous collections of poems, four novels, a collection of short fiction, a collection of essays, and a craft book on writing fiction. His poems, fiction, and essays have appeared in more than ninety-five national magazines and journals. He is the only two-time winner of the American Fiction Prize. Additionally, his work has been honored with the Midwest Book Award, the Society of Midland Authors Award, the Gable Prize from Graywolf Press, the Germain Breé Book Award, three Notable Essay citations in the Best American Essays series, an NEA grant, more than forty Pushcart nominations, and the Associated Press Award for Documentary Excellence for his investigations of organized crime and political corruption. He received theatre training at the Circle-in-the-Square on Broadway and is a former principal actor with the National Shakespeare Company and the Puerto Rican Traveling Theatre. Several of his plays have been produced, and he has worked as a screenwriter for Warner Bros. and as a creative consultant for HBO Television. He is a former editor of Indiana Review and was the founder of the Beloit Fiction Journal, which he edited for twenty years; for four years he served as General Editor for the AWP Intro Journals Awards. He is a professor emeritus in the graduate writing program at Virginia Commonwealth University and for twenty years he served as a member of the writing faculty for the Vermont College of Fine Arts low-residency MFA program. In 2021 he was inducted into the Writers Hall of Fame at Wake Forest University.

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