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 remained fierce in his avoidance of the beaten
path. In "Refusing Heaven," Gilbert writes compellingly about the
commingled passion, loneliness, and sometimes surprising happiness
of a life spent in luminous understanding of his own blessings and
shortcomings: "The days and nights wasted . . . Long hot afternoons
/ watching ants while the cicadas railed / in the Chinese elm about
the brevity of life." Time slows down in these poems, as Gilbert
creates an aura of curiosity and wonder at the fact of existence
itself. Despite powerful intermittent griefs-over the women he has
parted from or the one lost to cancer (an experience he captures
with intimate precision)-Gilbert's choice in this volume is to
"refuse heaven." He prefers this life, with its struggle and
alienation and delight, to any paradise. His work is both a
rebellious assertion of the call to clarity and a profound
affirmation of the world in all its aspects. It braces the reader
in its humanity and heart.
"From the Hardcover edition."
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