[New-Poetry] Christopher Gilbert

[David Graham]

A wonderful poet died this summer, and I don't think I've seen any  
notice of his death.  His name was Christopher Gilbert, and his one  
and only collection of poems appeared as part of the National Poetry  
Series in 1984, selected by Michael Harper.  The book's long out of  
print, but you still see it in the used bookstores occasionally:   
*Across the Mutual Landscape*.  I highly recommend this book.

I hadn't seen Chris in over 25 years, but I gather he'd had some  
really rough times before he died.  He wasn't yet 60 years old.

This Bridge Across

A moment comes to me and
it's a lot like the dead
who get in the way sometimes
hanging around, with their ranks
growing bigger by the second
and the game of tag they play
claiming whoever happens by.
I try to put them off
but the space between us
is like a country growing closer
which has a language I know
more and more of me is
growing up inside of, and
the clincher is the nothing
for me to do inside here
except to face my dead
as the spirits they are,
find the parts of me in them --
call them back with my words.
Ancestor worship or prayer?
It's a kind of getting by--
an extension of living
beyond my self my people taught me,
and each moment is a boundary
I will throw this bridge across.

--Christopher Gilbert.  Across the Mutual Landscape.  Graywolf Press,  
1984.



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David Graham
grahamd at ripon.edu

Home Page:
http://web.mac.com/drjazz/iWeb/Site/About%20Me.html

Poetry Library:
http://web.mac.com/drjazz/iWeb/Site/DGPoLibrary.html
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