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 21
... listened for the sound that made him shiver as he ran hard across the new sawdust to see the two women again on a platform above his head , indolent and almost naked in the simple daylight . Reality stretched thin as he watched their ...
... listened for the sound that made him shiver as he ran hard across the new sawdust to see the two women again on a platform above his head , indolent and almost naked in the simple daylight . Reality stretched thin as he watched their ...
Page 57
... listened to the song so often that he hears only the spaces between the notes . He stands there , remembering peaches . A strange , almost gray kind that had little taste when he got them home , and that little not much good . But there ...
... listened to the song so often that he hears only the spaces between the notes . He stands there , remembering peaches . A strange , almost gray kind that had little taste when he got them home , and that little not much good . But there ...
Page 62
... did not look back . As I typed , I listened for the dog at each farm to tell me which house they went to next . But the dogs did not bark all the way down the long bright valley . HARM AND BOON IN THE MEETINGS We think the fire 62 GHOSTS.
... did not look back . As I typed , I listened for the dog at each farm to tell me which house they went to next . But the dogs did not bark all the way down the long bright valley . HARM AND BOON IN THE MEETINGS We think the fire 62 GHOSTS.
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