[New-Poetry] Re: Gilbert

[James Cervantes]

I don't personally know the man, but I do know his poetry, and what
you say rings true.  Thank you Finnegan.

- Jim, who likes Gilbert's reading style

On 9/1/06, JforJames at aol.com <JforJames at aol.com> wrote:
>
>
>
> 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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>
>


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