The Illustrations

Poet Marvin Bell had this to say about this Norman Dubie's collection in the Braziller Series of Poetry: "From the first, Norman Dubie's poems have contested the limits of the lyric, enlarging by their experimental example our current overlimited notions of poetic point of view, image, and structure. Few poets have had so severe a vision of scene and story, or the stamina to pursue it at length. Through many identities — at times tellingly evasive, at times confessional- Dubie's poems register a sensuous, tough, and ennobling view. And they take up the difficulties of personal histories – intimate and cultural, told or insinuated. Every speaker confronts a difficult subject, a test of composure. These are in large measure the poems of people who cannot help themselves and for whom the change to report their circumstances is an occasion for courage and dignity — all in the language."