[New-Poetry] Re: Gilbert

[Anny Ballardini]

A wonderful picture, thank you.

Anny
  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: JforJames at aol.com 
  To: new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu 
  Sent: Friday, September 01, 2006 4:45 PM
  Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] Re: Gilbert


  In a message dated 8/30/2006 1:13:57 PM Eastern Daylight Time, grahamd at ripon.edu writes:
    I'll admit to a fairly deep distaste for the Bardic Persona, which Gilbert appears to have in spades.  (I heard him read in public once, and almost walked out--he seemed so in love with his own work that there was little room for poor me to join in.)

    But that's apart from the poems themselves, really, which at their best are powerful and, yes, stubbornly fierce in a most memorable way.  


  I know Jack Gilbert pretty well. I think he really just didn't go out of his
  way to let a poetry career get in the way of living his life. He's older
  now and really can't push himself out front in the world of poetry. But
  I don't think, when he could, he ever wanted to. I think he was never the kind 
  of poet who got up in the morning thinking about things he had do related 
  to being a poet: getting published, getting a conference gig, getting an
  academic chair or award, etc. It isn't like that for him. He doesn't drive
  a car but he's traveled the world. He's never owned a house; the sum
  of his possessions would fill a one-car garage or storage unit. One of
  my favorite 'Jackisms': "I only need to make enough money to afford my
  own life." Since that life was a fairly modest in terms of creature comforts
  and with no children to support, he worked (gave a reading, did a conference,
  taught a semester here or there) enough for his own upkeep and little
  back-up savings. I don't think he actively resisted the mythology that 
  was created by his being absent from 'the scene' for years at a time, 
  but he wasn't cultivating that 'reclusive persona' either. He was just going 
  off and living his life. 

  When he came back into view and was invited to do a big reading, he'd often 
  agree. He enjoyed the limelight of a reading or an award...but he didn't live for it. 
  I cannot recall a single occasion where he engaged in the least bit of 
  self-promotion when it came to getting an award/reading. Doing no
  self-promotion isn't the same as promoting the mystique of an outsider
  poet. He was just outside; but he would come in from the cold, so to 
  speak, happily, when circumstance and inclination coincided. 

  I found it hard to hear that David Graham was off-put by Jack's reading
  style. Of course as a friend and a fan of his work, I'm far from unbiased,
  but I never saw him the way. Yes, he enjoys reading the poems he's written. 
  He not one to be self-effacing when reading...but I never saw any overt 
  performance in his reading and I never saw his public readings as haughty or 
  narcissistic. But he did like to 'hold-forth' and to let people in the audience
  know what he valued and stood for when it came to poetry. And it wasn't 
  a wide-ranging eclecticism or fashionable modes that he was in favor of.

  He could be very hard on the work of other poets. (Except for Linda Gregg
  who could do no wrong.) In workshop or critical environment I've seen him
  push people pretty hard. Especially if they weren't writing what he thought
  was 'serious poetry'. Light-hearted wordplayers and post-modernist tricksters, 
  in particular, were spared no disdain. Good poets who were 'trying to do
  something different for a change', got an eyebrow beating as well. 

  Anyway, I'm glad to see him picking up a few awards late in life. Bloodaxe
  is working on a Selected, I understand, so maybe his poems will find some 
  new readers in the UK and Ireland.

  Finnegan

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