The Great Fires: Poems, 1982-1992JOYCE'S MOTTO has had much fame but few apostles. Among them, there has been Jack Gilbert and his orthodoxy, a strictness that has required of this poet, now in the seventh decade of his severe life, the penalty of his having had almost no fame at all. In an era that puts before the artist so many sleek and official temptations, keeping unflinchingly to a code of "silence, exile, and cunning" could not have been managed without a show of strictness well beyond the reach of the theater of the coy. The "far, stubborn, disastrous" course of Jack Gilbert's resolute journey--not one that would promise in time to bring him home to the consolations of Penelope and the comforts of Ithaca but one that would instead take him ever outward to the impossible blankness of the desert--could never have been achieved in the society of others. What has kept this great poet brave has been the difficult company of his poems--and now we have, in Gilbert's third and most silent book, what may be, what must be, the bravest of these imperial accomplishments. "From the Trade Paperback edition." |
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Page 4
... close . " Look at me , ' the old man said with uncomplaining simplicity , " I'm already one of the dead among the dead . It's hard to watch things humiliated the way death does it . " " Possums smeared on the road , birds with ants ...
... close . " Look at me , ' the old man said with uncomplaining simplicity , " I'm already one of the dead among the dead . It's hard to watch things humiliated the way death does it . " " Possums smeared on the road , birds with ants ...
Page 20
... close to the fruit , and she slows . The berry she is after is so ripe , there is almost no red . Prospero thinks of Christopher Smart saying purple is black blooming . She lifts her mouth to the berry , stretching . The throat is an ...
... close to the fruit , and she slows . The berry she is after is so ripe , there is almost no red . Prospero thinks of Christopher Smart saying purple is black blooming . She lifts her mouth to the berry , stretching . The throat is an ...
Page 88
... close as he remembers seeing the big owl on the roof last night for the first time after hearing it for months . Thinking how much he has grown unsuited for love the size it is for him . " But maybe not , " he says . And the eyes open ...
... close as he remembers seeing the big owl on the roof last night for the first time after hearing it for months . Thinking how much he has grown unsuited for love the size it is for him . " But maybe not , " he says . And the eyes open ...
Contents
GOING WRONG | 3 |
GOING THERE | 16 |
THE SPIRIT AND THE SOUL | 23 |
Copyright | |
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Aegean afternoon afterward barley beautiful bewildered birds body cold comes crying dances dark Denmark DON GIOVANNI door dream dress empty Eurydice everything eyes face feet finally fire flesh GIFT HORSES girls goes going-home train hair happy HARM AND BOON hear heart horses IMAGINE THE GODS inside JACK GILBERT kerosene lamps listened live look LORD SITS lost marriage Mediterranean light MICHIKO DEAD Monolithos moon moonlight morning mountain naked nakedness Nogami olive trees Orpheus Passion Perugia Pittsburgh pleasure poems Prospero raccoon rain REC'D remember ripe river Rome ruined searching shutters silence singing smell snow soul spirit standing STEEL GUITARS stone street stubborn summer sunlight sweet talking teak tell things tomatoes trees trying Umbria UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA upstairs valley voice WABI walking watch weeds WHITE HEART wild window winter woman women woods young