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330th out of 975 books
—
1,012 voters
Refusing Heaven
by
Jack Gilbert
More than a decade after Jack Gilbert’s The Great Fires, this highly anticipated new collection shows the continued development of a poet who has remained fierce in his avoidance of the beaten path. In Refusing Heaven, Gilbert writes compellingly about the commingled passion, loneliness, and sometimes surprising happiness of a life spent in luminous understanding of his ow...more
Paperback, 112 pages
Published
March 13th 2007
by Knopf
(first published March 8th 2005)
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This is an exquisite book. It is heart-breaking and I've read and re-read it so many times I've lost count. An old man looks back on his life. He remembers old lovers and former wives. He remembers his wife who died of cancer when she was in her thirties. It is achingly lovely. It hurts in a good way to read this.
As an addendum there is an excellent critical review of this book on slate.com, written by Megan O'Rourke. Just search for the book title or Jack Gilbert.
As an addendum there is an excellent critical review of this book on slate.com, written by Megan O'Rourke. Just search for the book title or Jack Gilbert.
I like Jack Gilbert, and I wish I'd bothered to read more of his work before he passed away. Because he brings to life images like this:
Once she said the world was an astonishing animal:...more
light was its spirit and noise was its mind.
That it was composed to feed on honor, but did not.
Another time she warned me about walking on the lawns
at night. Told me of heavy birds that flew after dark
croaking, "Feathers or lead, stone or fire?"
Mounting people who gave the wrong answer and riding
them like horses
A measure of good poetry is that a few words can change the reader's perspective. A second yardstick is being memorable, indelible. And, it elevates craft to art when those things happen while someone is welding words in new and striking ways. Refusing Heaven is a winner on all three counts, and its subject matter makes it accessible to almost everyone. Jack Gilbert writes about ordinary bits of life in exotic locales. But, mostly, he writes about the landscape of the heart. He is a lover of wom...more
A bit torn about this book. In many regards they are truly beautiful poems, written in a down-to-earth style with beautiful imagery and flights into metaphysics that I really enjoy going on while reading poetry. It's also a wonderful look at a truly poetic life, from the point of the person leading it, and this cannot be discounted. One may be bitter that one's own life if not as poetic as free as Gilbert's, but that's not his fault. In summary it strikes me a kind of classical modern poetry, if...more
Here's a poet who writes about his time with specificity and perspective at the same time, able to step in and out of the period in which he lives. The poems are about both time and timelessness, and are often of stunning beauty. Their only drawback for me as a woman is that they are so masculine. Making love to women is a way for Gilbert to know God, but he can never place himself inside a woman's mind, nor can a woman be a real poet for him. The women in his poems may be adored, but they are a...more
I'd read this before, though I'm unsure exactly when. I came to it again after having been impressed with the Jack Gilbert I found in a Paris Review interview. Refusing Heaven hadn't previously dazzled me--I don't remember it and I'd rated it low in the systems we play with. I suspect I read it too fast because I now think it's not poetry to be easily dismissed. I saw so much more this reading. You begin poems as refined as these as if you're approaching a still, quiet pool. But in each the ligh...more
I love Jack Gilbert. He's always living in a stone hut in the countryside of Greece or Ireland and noticing the things that people only notice when they've been alone way too long and have a talent for observation. The result is quiet poems. Even the images are quiet.
The Abandoned Valley
Can you understand being alone so long
you would go out in the middle of the night
and put a bucket into the well
so you could feel something down there
tug at the other end of the rope?
The Abandoned Valley
Can you understand being alone so long
you would go out in the middle of the night
and put a bucket into the well
so you could feel something down there
tug at the other end of the rope?
3 likes · like · see review
Henry Miller says that a good reader should have patience to find gems in a work, even if it is one good sentence. I didn't need much patience in Gilbert's collection. Not to say that Refusing Heaven is a perfect work. Many poems are repetitive in theme, some even using very similar metaphors. There are those that seem lofty like some of Robert Frost's work. There are some that I had no idea the purpose or exactly what they meant. The best are his serene poems which are composed in, what I belie...more
1 like · like · see review
An amazing book of poetry! Some quotables...."We live the strangeness of being momentary, and still we are exalted by being temporary." and...."It is the fact of being brief, being small and slight that is the source of our beauty.We are a singularity that makes music out of noise because we must hurry.We make a harvest of loneliness and desiring in the blank wasteland of the cosmos."
I loved this collection. It has so much heart, and I mean that in the most complimentary, least sentimental way. Unlike so much of contemporary poetry that's more interested in dropping cultural references or showcasing verbal masturbation, Gilbert's writing is clean and insightful and break-your-heart gorgeous. Can't wait to read more of his work.
Jack Gilbert is a poet who has lived the outside-the-poetry-establishment life. This book is another of his which focus on his loves, Nature, Mortality, transience. I won't bother to separately review The Great Fires, or Monolithos, but if any of these speak to you, the others will too.
I would call this a poetic account of Gilbert's turning his back on success in the United States for life in the poorest parts of Europe. At least that's the story he tells. I'm on board with the project because the crazy woman pisses in the empty lot. And his girlfriends.
What we are given is taken away,
but we manage to keep it secretly.
We lose everything, but make harvest
of the consequence it was to us. Memory
builds this kingdom from the fragments
and approximation. We are gleaners who fill
the barn for the winter that comes on.
but we manage to keep it secretly.
We lose everything, but make harvest
of the consequence it was to us. Memory
builds this kingdom from the fragments
and approximation. We are gleaners who fill
the barn for the winter that comes on.
Jack Gilbert is one of the most contemplative poets still writing. I get the sense that no poem here is hurried to conclusion, or written to fill a space in a manuscript. Jack Gilbert's poetry seems to come from places of genuine experience and common need.
Reading this book of poetry made me want to go back and re-rate all other poetry books I've ever read. I loved it so much. So very very much. Instead of rushing through to consume it, I left the bookmark in place for days at a time to come back and read again what I'd just read. Morepleasenow.
One the best collections I've read in some time. Imagine a humble, wiser Hemingway turning into a recluse and taking up poetry. Gilbert's descriptive powers do remind me of Hemingway. Lot's of short sentences, but the poems never seem choppy. And unlike Hemingway, there always seems to be a transcendent aspect to these poems. But Gilbert never drifts off. He's rooted in the here and now, and he does love the ladies. I hope to expand on this later, but this is going to be a busy week & weeken...more
Jul 27, 2011
Chris
added it
Pretty good poems, not spectular but better quality than most contemporary books. One example of a nice line: "We live the strangeness of being momentary, / and still we are exalted by being temporary."
One of Pittsburgh's finest, though he isn't exactly Pittsburgh's anymore, as he hasn't lived here (it seems) since his childhood. Poems of loss, time, memory, worldy locations and childhood in Pittsburgh.
For me, Gilbert is one of the most important poets writing. This is a near flawless collection. The voice he's created in nearly 50 years of writing comes to rest in this book. High praise.
the finest book of poetry i have ever read, or ever hope to read. he writes with a painful, full beauty that leaves you panting after struggling [in a very good way:] through every poem.
"We are given trees so that we know what God looks like. And rivers so we might understand Him. We are allowed women so we can get into bed with the Lord, however partial and momentary that is." -JG
if i could give this a million stars, i would. Jack's writing has inspired me,challenged me, saved me, and made me long for a place i've never even been. thank you, Cory Driver.
Gilbert's poems are so direct, personal but full of feeling. Favorite in the collection was definitely Failing and Flying. Have read it again and again.
So romantic, but not in a lovey, cheesy way. In an Irish hills and Tuscany landscape and growing old sort of way.
Great. Now one of my favorite poets. Check out Icarus: http://writersalmanac.publicradio.org...
The rare book. It describes a life that most of us are not stubborn enough to live. Beautiful.
Apr 09, 2010
Jimmy
added it
Hell of a first poem, huh guys? Not near The Great Fires, but still powerful stuff.
More good lines than good poems. Some flared and then didn't have the courage to simply stop. Several pieces, I'll admit, were immaculate.
These poems are intimate, but hard-nosed. Does have me curious about his life.
Thanks, GL. Am astonished that I'd somehow missed his work until now.
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Born and raised in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, U.S.'s neighborhood of East Liberty, he attended Peabody High School then worked as a door-to-door salesman, an exterminator, and a steelworker. He graduated from the University of Pittsburgh, where he and his classmate Gerald Stern developed a serious interest in poetry and writing.
His work is distinguished by simple lyricism and straightforward clari...more
More about Jack Gilbert...
His work is distinguished by simple lyricism and straightforward clari...more
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“THE ABANDONED VALLEY
Can you understand being alone so long
you would go out in the middle of the night
and put a bucket into the well
so you could feel something down there
tug at the other end of the rope?”
—
12 people liked it
Can you understand being alone so long
you would go out in the middle of the night
and put a bucket into the well
so you could feel something down there
tug at the other end of the rope?”
“We must have the stubbornness to accept our gladness in the ruthless furnace of this world.”
—
11 people liked it
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Apr 05, 2012 06:16am