In The Dance of No Hard Feelings, Mark Bibbins addresses environmental disaster in poems like “An Opiate Coating of Disregard Prevails” and “Concerning the Land to the South of Our Neighbors to the North” (50, 69). While he emphasizes this disaster through his use of brackets and white space, he balances this structure through the musicality he creates via repetition.
Bibbins use of form and white space emphasized the content of the poems. For example, in “Force Field [Ardor],” the poem emphasizes direction and disorientation. This can be seen in when Bibbins writes that “one air rife with yes…we have navigated” (57). He also shows this idea when stating that “you wound up/wired and weird on your/precipice//then dove” (62). The juxtaposition of rife and navigation highlights the theme of moving unchecked and even sporadically, a theme he further accentuates through the use of form and white space.
In this same poem Bibbins spaces the two to three words of each line at different side margins, sometimes aligning them on the left, right, or at both sides. He also uses extra white space in between the stanzas, sometimes blurring where exactly one stanza stops and the other begins. In this way, the form often mimics the content of this and many of his other poems. For example, “Here a Narrative, There a Narrative, Everywhere a Narrative Narrative” demonstrates this when Bibbins writes “[looking for looking for looking for you]” (17). In this passage the reader is literally looking for the next phrase hidden by the repetition of looking for.
Bibbins also uses white space to emphasize the theme of environmental disaster. For example, in his poem “Microburst,” he writes “[a great collision in the wings]…[on fire] [on fucking fire]” (44). Each of these bracketed phrases is aligned to the right, whereas the rest of the poem is aligned to the left. By doing this, Bibbins suggests chaotic motion, especially when the vertical and horizontal alignments of the brackets are inconsistent.
By vertical alignment, I am referring to how he sometimes right-aligns the third line, fourth line, seventh line, etc.—each use of brackets is used on a random line. He occasionally even uses multiple bracketed phrases on the same line. By the horizontal alignment, I mean how some of his bracketed lines are justified all the way to the far right of the page, while others are indented by an inch from the right. This echoes his use of words like “collision” and “shore up,” which have the connotations of chaos, similar to how the words are organized on the page.
In spite of the disaster theme of several of his poems, Bibbins balances this chaos with his use of repetition. For example, while he might scatter the words into different areas of the paper in his poem "Force Field [Ardor]," he concentrates on the repetition of image in single spurts. Towards the end of this poem, he states “mouth full of progress/mouth full of intractable/mouth full of swarm/full of spikes” (63). The repetition of mouth ties the separate phrases together. He does this again when he writes “we flew [fly]//will fly//should fly will have flown//are flying apart” (63).
In both of these examples, Bibbins adds cohesion to his poem via the repetition of imagery. While the structure and line breaks might make the poem choppy and less rhythmic, repeating mouth and fly decrease that effect, so that the poem becomes more balanced with the chaotic and with the musicality. In the example of fly, his structure imitates how a bird might fly unpredictably through the sky; however, the repetition of fly emphasizes the grace with which the we in the poem is still able move.
Bibbins use of form and white space emphasized the content of the poems. For example, in “Force Field [Ardor],” the poem emphasizes direction and disorientation. This can be seen in when Bibbins writes that “one air rife with yes…we have navigated” (57). He also shows this idea when stating that “you wound up/wired and weird on your/precipice//then dove” (62). The juxtaposition of rife and navigation highlights the theme of moving unchecked and even sporadically, a theme he further accentuates through the use of form and white space.
In this same poem Bibbins spaces the two to three words of each line at different side margins, sometimes aligning them on the left, right, or at both sides. He also uses extra white space in between the stanzas, sometimes blurring where exactly one stanza stops and the other begins. In this way, the form often mimics the content of this and many of his other poems. For example, “Here a Narrative, There a Narrative, Everywhere a Narrative Narrative” demonstrates this when Bibbins writes “[looking for looking for looking for you]” (17). In this passage the reader is literally looking for the next phrase hidden by the repetition of looking for.
Bibbins also uses white space to emphasize the theme of environmental disaster. For example, in his poem “Microburst,” he writes “[a great collision in the wings]…[on fire] [on fucking fire]” (44). Each of these bracketed phrases is aligned to the right, whereas the rest of the poem is aligned to the left. By doing this, Bibbins suggests chaotic motion, especially when the vertical and horizontal alignments of the brackets are inconsistent.
By vertical alignment, I am referring to how he sometimes right-aligns the third line, fourth line, seventh line, etc.—each use of brackets is used on a random line. He occasionally even uses multiple bracketed phrases on the same line. By the horizontal alignment, I mean how some of his bracketed lines are justified all the way to the far right of the page, while others are indented by an inch from the right. This echoes his use of words like “collision” and “shore up,” which have the connotations of chaos, similar to how the words are organized on the page.
In spite of the disaster theme of several of his poems, Bibbins balances this chaos with his use of repetition. For example, while he might scatter the words into different areas of the paper in his poem "Force Field [Ardor]," he concentrates on the repetition of image in single spurts. Towards the end of this poem, he states “mouth full of progress/mouth full of intractable/mouth full of swarm/full of spikes” (63). The repetition of mouth ties the separate phrases together. He does this again when he writes “we flew [fly]//will fly//should fly will have flown//are flying apart” (63).
In both of these examples, Bibbins adds cohesion to his poem via the repetition of imagery. While the structure and line breaks might make the poem choppy and less rhythmic, repeating mouth and fly decrease that effect, so that the poem becomes more balanced with the chaotic and with the musicality. In the example of fly, his structure imitates how a bird might fly unpredictably through the sky; however, the repetition of fly emphasizes the grace with which the we in the poem is still able move.