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...
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Dec 01, 2011
Marguerite
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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
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Jul 19, 2009
Jan
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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
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Jan 22, 2010
James
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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 th
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Feb 06, 2009
Sarah
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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 othe
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 othe
Jul 08, 2011
David
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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
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Jul 19, 2009
Robin
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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."
May 20, 2009
Jack
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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.
Jul 19, 2010
Dom
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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.
Aug 19, 2010
Steve
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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 & we
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Jul 27, 2011
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."
Oct 25, 2009
Birdlashes
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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.
Jul 14, 2010
Sam
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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.
Jun 15, 2009
Cory
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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.
Apr 06, 2009
Kristen
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"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
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Feb 13, 2010
Hannah
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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.
Aug 22, 2011
Laura
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So romantic, but not in a lovey, cheesy way. In an Irish hills and Tuscany landscape and growing old sort of way.
Apr 14, 2010
Robert
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Great. Now one of my favorite poets. Check out Icarus: http://writersalmanac.publicradio.org/in...
Apr 09, 2010
Hell of a first poem, huh guys? Not near The Great Fires, but still powerful stuff.
Apr 14, 2009
Ian
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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.
Nov 13, 2008
Ryan
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Not up to snuff with monolithos, but Gilbert who is getting up there in years, delivers some memorable poems in his latest book. 'A Brief for the Defense' rings of his possibly best know 'the abnormal is not courage' and has that same ability to dissect a cultural phenomena, turn it on its head, and still not leave you feeling uncomfortable but rather newly comfortable with is view, always opposite of the accepted. That sentence may not have made sense. Overall, great collection from an under
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Aug 12, 2010
Allison
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One of the best collections of poetry that I've read in my entire life. Beautiful.
Jun 22, 2011
R.
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I'm not sure who, if even my imagination, told me this collection was much weaker than the Great Fires. If I figure out who it was, I'll be sure to ask them what the hell they were thinking. Jack Gilbert is a bona fide gift to humanity. Previously discovered favorites of mine "Moreover" and "Failing and flying" are in here, as are many new gems.
Jan 19, 2009
Anna
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I thought I had not read this but just came across a list (long list) of my favorites. was tucked away in a pile of papers. here are the tip-tops:
a brief for the defense
having the having
by small and small
once upon a time
the rooster
failing and flying
burning
the other perfection
a brief for the defense
having the having
by small and small
once upon a time
the rooster
failing and flying
burning
the other perfection
Nov 29, 2008
Joan Paulette
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This was my first experience of Jack Gilbert. I read him on the recommendation of two other poets I admire greatly, Gregory Crosby and Bruce Issacson. I love his bravery, his simplicity and his clear-eyed ironic humor. I will work my way backwards to Great Fires and Monolithos.
Sep 17, 2007
Mia
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Such provender for want."
Not as good as "The Great Fires," but still very good.
Jack Gilbert: Michiko and Linda; solitude; ghosts; Pittsbugh; the Lord; interrogation of language; turns; use of 3rd person confessional; ex-pat loves and places; eros; clarity on loss.
Not as good as "The Great Fires," but still very good.
Jack Gilbert: Michiko and Linda; solitude; ghosts; Pittsbugh; the Lord; interrogation of language; turns; use of 3rd person confessional; ex-pat loves and places; eros; clarity on loss.
Sep 02, 2007
Claire
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jack gilbert is an incredibly talented poet... somehow both refined and raw in the same instant... he captures truth and tells it back right to the reader's core. if I ever write one piece that is as good as any of his, I will be satisfied.
