Refusing Heaven

by Jack Gilbert
Refusing Heaven
book data
246 ratings, 4.26 average rating, 35 reviews (more data...)
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published
March 8th 2005 (first published 2007) by Knopf

binding
Hardcover, 112 pages

literary awards
National Book Critics Circle Award (2005)

isbn
1400043654    (isbn13: 9781400043651)

description
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 rema...more




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other reviews (showing 1-20 of 320)

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Sarah
02/06/09
Sarah rated it: 5 of 5 stars (review of isbn 037571085X)

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...more
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Jack
05/20/09
Jack rated it: 3 of 5 stars (review of isbn 037571085X)

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.
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Cory Driver
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.
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Kristen
bookshelves: poetry
Read in April, 2009
"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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Blake Taylor
bookshelves: favorites, nightstand
In Refusing Heaven, Gilbert seems to some extent to have come to terms with his life. He's by no means content, but the passions and conflicts of his earlier works, while not completely resolved, feel at least to have moderated. Perhaps it's fitting; Gilbert turned eighty the year this book was published. He's reached the point where he's entitled to make a few plain statements of the world as he sees it.

Perhaps not as movingly painful as his earlier work, but uplifting in its g...more
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Ian
04/08/09
Ian rated it: 4 of 5 stars (review of isbn 037571085X)

bookshelves: poetry
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.
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Ryan
11/13/08
Ryan rated it: 4 of 5 stars (review of isbn 037571085X)

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...more
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Ashley
05/05/09
Ashley rated it: 5 of 5 stars (review of isbn 037571085X)

bookshelves: read-several-times
My favorite poetry book
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Kristin
Beautiful.
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Anna
08/17/08
Anna rated it: 4 of 5 stars (review of isbn 037571085X)

Read in January, 2008
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
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Deb
01/31/09
Deb rated it: 2 of 5 stars

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Joan Paulette Dudley
bookshelves: poetry
Read in November, 2008
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.
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Mia
08/08/07
Mia rated it: 4 of 5 stars (review of isbn 037571085X)

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.
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Nicole
10/01/07
Nicole rated it: 4 of 5 stars (review of isbn 037571085X)

I read this shortly after finishing 'The Great Fires.' There's lots of gorgeous stuff in here, but his emotional torment has been tempered by time, and he's become comfortable enough with life to make statements of facts in his poetry. Which is less moving.
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Claire
09/02/07
Claire rated it: 5 of 5 stars (review of isbn 037571085X)

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.
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Graham
02/29/08
Graham rated it: 4 of 5 stars (review of isbn 037571085X)

recommends it for: fans of smart accessible poetry
if you find Bukowski's prose style engaging but a little too talky and a lot too butch but aren't quite ready to dive into flowers and beaches and birds, this is pretty good stuff. lots of poems about his dead wife.
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Rynell
12/04/07
Rynell rated it: 5 of 5 stars (review of isbn 037571085X)

Read in October, 2007
I have read and re-read this book. Jack Gilbert is such an honest poet. His words stay with me. I came away from this collection with more respect for his work that in his earlier collection, The Great Fires.
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Will Humphrey
A fascinating voice that seems to straddle the aesthetic sensibilities of the raucous, sensual Beats and the meditative sensitivity of Hass, Simic and even Stephen Mitchell. enjoying very much

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Sunni
07/01/08
Sunni rated it: 4 of 5 stars (review of isbn 037571085X)

bookshelves: poetry
For some reason I didn't like this as well as "The Great Fires," but still found it powerful. Jack Gilbert is, I believe, the greatest living American poet.
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J.R.
01/21/08
J.R. rated it: 5 of 5 stars (review of isbn 037571085X)

Read in December, 2007
Another wonderful mix of life and poetry. Must read: Krustakammer with Flying & Falling. Some of the best american poetry to date.
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Refusing Heaven (Paperback)










The Great Fires: Poems, 1982-1992 (Paperback) by Jack Gilbert
The Dance Most of All: Poems (Hardcover) by Jack Gilbert
Tough Heaven: Poems of Pittsburgh (Paperback) by Jack Gilbert

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