Declare Books During The Great Fires
| Original Title: | The Great Fires: Poems, 1982-1992 |
| ISBN: | 0679747672 (ISBN13: 9780679747673) |
| Edition Language: | English |
Jack Gilbert
Paperback | Pages: 96 pages Rating: 4.34 | 2083 Users | 127 Reviews
Details Appertaining To Books The Great Fires
| Title | : | The Great Fires |
| Author | : | Jack Gilbert |
| Book Format | : | Paperback |
| Book Edition | : | Deluxe Edition |
| Pages | : | Pages: 96 pages |
| Published | : | February 13th 1996 by Knopf (first published February 13th 1994) |
| Categories | : | Poetry. Fiction |
Representaion Toward Books The Great Fires
JOYCE'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.
Rating Appertaining To Books The Great Fires
Ratings: 4.34 From 2083 Users | 127 ReviewsAppraise Appertaining To Books The Great Fires
I did like some of the poems (Haunted Importantly, Betrothed, What is There to Say?, Michiko Dead, How to Love the Dead) but I hated a huge number of them. Hate is the wrong word - more that I found them distasteful or faux-wise or the cadence just felt off.Not the river as fact, but the winter river,and that river in June as two rivers. We feel it run through our nature, the watersmelling of wet rotting just before spring,and we call it love, a wilderness in the mind.
I was out in the woods yesterday with some friends, and we were staring at some beautifully almost-symmetric rocks in a creek bed. We started talking about wabi-sabi, which reminded me of the poem "Ruins and Wabi" from this book. That poem reminded me of several other poems in this book, which reminded me that this book is unbearably awesome.Four years after first reading it this is still my favorite book of poetry, hands down.
Vocabulary isn't Style, clever juxtaposition isn't Insight, vagueness of thought isn't Mystery. The rhythm was by turns confusing or non-existent. The stories were not engaging. The only way these poems could be saved is by being read aloud in an affected poet voice.I was surprised at how much I didn't like this book, as I intended to like it and as much as I loved the opening poem "Going Wrong."I put this book down a few times to clear my head. I thought it was me being too critical. But every
Once again I'm at a loss for words when I try to write about poetry. I can't pretend I really know enough about the technical side of writing poetry, to write an informed review, and can merely give my personal opinion. Most of the time the poems felt too full. Not necessarily too long, but rather as if the writer couldn't quite get at the point he wanted to make, and just tried to throw more words on the page in an attempt to reach the centre of a feeling, and then left it like that. It never
Oh my goodness! What an extraordinary book of poems, a book I cant believe Ive gone this long without having in my life. Thanks to Britta for introducing me to this collection. I like when people share a line or two in their reviews, but I just can't choose so here's a whole poem: "The Lives of Famous Men" Trying to scrape the burned soup from my only pan with a spoon after midnight by oil lamp because if I do not cook the mackerel this hot night it will kill me tomorrow in the vegetable stew.
I cannot find another poet like Gilbert. Most of his poems, at least in this book, carry with them a quiet feeling of isolation- a bitter-sweet feeling of nostalgia that both bites and repairs the heart. It's difficult to know how to feel when reading his poems, but one thing is for certain; you will feel.
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