Giscombe, C.S. 1950-

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Giscombe, C.S. 1950-

PERSONAL:

Born November 30, 1950, in Dayton, OH; son of Cecil S. (a physician) and Daisy (a teacher) Giscombe; married Katharine E. Wright (a teacher and zoo curator), August 10, 1975; children: Madeline Wright. Education: State University of New York at Albany, B.A., 1973; Cornell University, M.F.A., 1975. Politics: "Left wing."

ADDRESSES:

Office—Department of English, Wheeler Hall, University of California, Berkeley, CA 94720.

CAREER:

Syracuse University, Syracuse, NY, assistant professor of English, 1977; Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, editor of Epoch, 1978-98, lecturer in English, beginning 1980; Illinois State University, Normal, professor of English, 1989-98; Pennsylvania State University, State College, professor of English, 1998-2007; University of California, Berkeley, professor of English, 2007—.

MEMBER:

Poets and Writers.

AWARDS, HONORS:

Poetry fellow, Creative Artists Public Service, 1981-82, and National Endowment for the Arts, 1986-87; editor's grant, Coordinating Council of Literary Magazines, 1987; poetry fellow, New York Foundation for the Arts, 1988; Carl Sandburg Award for Poetry, 1998; fellowships from Fund for Poetry and Illinois Arts Council; Fulbright Award.

WRITINGS:

Postcards (poetry), Ithaca House (Ithaca, NY), 1977.

Here (poetry), Dalkey Archive Press (Normal, IL), 1994.

Giscome Road (poetry), Dalkey Archive Press (Normal, IL), 1998.

Into and out of Dislocation (travel memoir), North Point Press (New York, NY), 2000.

Two Sections from "Practical Geography: Five Poems," Diaeresis Books (Boca Raton, FL), 2000.

Inland (poetry), Leroy Books (San Francisco, CA), 2001.

Prairie Style, Dalkey Archive Press (Champaign, IL), 2008.

Also author of the unpublished work "Archie Underground" (for children). Contributor of poetry and prose to periodicals, including New American Writing, Callaloo, O-Blek, Iowa Review, and Hudson Review. Editor, American Book Review; contributing editor, Cross-Cultural Poetics.

SIDELIGHTS:

C.S. Giscombe once told CA: "I'm struck again and again by the role geography plays in my writing. I mean, language tends to occur to me in terms of place, of location." Giscombe is a recognized figure in the African-American poetic avant garde. He received the Carl Sandburg Award for Poetry in 1998 and was cited in Publishers Weekly for his "powerful, understated meditation on place, ancestry and time" in his poetry collection Here. The same Publishers Weekly critic noted that Giscombe reveals the African-American experience effectively "because he so well evokes his individual consciousness."

In the mid-1990s Giscombe became fascinated with the legend of John Robert Giscome, a noted Jamaican adventurer (with a similar surname) who traveled through British Columbia in search of gold. C.S. Giscombe and his family set out for Canada to retrace Giscome's steps, and the poet charted his personal explorations in Into and out of Dislocation. "The book is about travel, race, family as metaphor, and physicality," Gis- combe commented, as quoted in an article in the Digital Collegian. "It is written for an educated audience with a sense of metaphor."

Reviewers found much to praise in the pages of Into and out of Dislocation. "Giscombe meditates on the meanings of borders and race and family," wrote Bonnie Smothers in Booklist. "His is an engaging albeit erudite study." A Publishers Weekly reviewer wrote: "Giscombe's evocation of Canada, during both John's time and the present, is deeply affecting…. His … style provides many reflective gems, especially on the issues of race and culture."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Booklist, April 15, 2000, Bonnie Smothers, review of Into and out of Dislocation, p. 1515.

Library Journal, April 1, 1999, review of Giscome Road, p. 95.

Publishers Weekly, October 31, 1994, review of Here, p. 56; May 25, 1998, review of Giscome Road, p. 87; April 24, 2000, review of Into and out of Dislocation, p. 75.

Virginia Quarterly Review, winter, 1999, review of Giscome Road, p. 29.