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Product Description
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.
Ingram
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Most helpful customer reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars
Haunting and exquisite,
By A Customer
This review is from: The Great Fires: Poems, 1982-1992 (Paperback)
These poems give and give. Incredible titles. Compelling, unflinching and deeply thoughtful. Beautiful phrasing, structure. A poet's poet, everyone's poet. An antidote to the rush, noise and information clutter of daily life. A must have.
5.0 out of 5 stars
Simply wonderful,
By A Customer
This review is from: The Great Fires: Poems, 1982-1992 (Paperback)
I have both Monolithos and the Great Fires. I remember and reread poems from both these volumes, continuously. Not all the poems, for me, are memorable, but many are. This is much much better than average for most poetry books by the typically annointed "major" poets. Gilbert takes care and time to read, his words are set in, play out through space and silence. The grief and loss he expresses are not the point for me, most poetry is about this, but he implicates his own sentimentality. And I like the "form factor" of his poems, the line breaks, line lengths, etc. And finally, I like the way he approaches his "career" which seems, to be an "un-career." Very little self-promotion, conference hopping, log rolling, etc.
3.0 out of 5 stars
A Good but Flawed Poet,
By George Pack (Northampton, MA) - See all my reviews
This review is from: The Great Fires: Poems, 1982-1992 (Paperback)
Jack Gilbert is not a genius by any stretch, nor is he a major poet. Much of his work is pretty fanciful, and his ego idealized. He is a notoriously poor critic, given to puffery and easy to agree with (but not very substantia) pronouncements. One gets the feeling that he tends to assume that something is so simply because it is what he beilieves. He is nevertheless a talented lyric poet, and his poems about Michiko Nogami, his late wife and great muse, are well worth reading. How many poets will go to their grave having written even one poem worth rereading? He has at least a dozen, and that's doing damned well in my book. It is interesting that although he often booms on about being large, his poems succeed best when they are less self-conscious, willing to be small. This is where his work becomes becomes real. Readers might take note that Gilbert originally published his Michiko poems these poems in a limited edition called "Kochan", a small collection that included work by the lady herself. Take what is good in his work, and smile gently at the author's indulgences. This is still a book worth reading.
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