Who is Jack Gilbert

Jack Gilbert (February 18, 1925 – November 13, 2012) was an American poet. Gilbert was acquainted with Jack Spicer and Allen Ginsberg, both prominent figureheads of the Beat Movement, but is not considered a Beat Poet; he described himself as a "serious romantic." Over his five-decade-long career, he published five full collections of poetry.

Early life and education

Born and raised in the Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania neighborhood of East Liberty, he attended Peabody High School. Gilbert then worked as a door-to-door salesman, an exterminator, and a steelworker.

He was admitted to the University of Pittsburgh and graduated in 1954. During these college years he and his classmate Gerald Stern developed a serious interest in poetry and writing.

Gilb...
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Jack Gilbert Poems

  • Summer At Blue Creek, North Carolina
    There was no water at my grandfather's
    when I was a kid and would go for it
    with two zinc buckets. Down the path,
    past the cow by the foundation where ...
  • In Dispraise Of Poetry
    When the King of Siam disliked a courtier,
    he gave him a beautiful white elephant.
    The miracle beast deserved such ritual
    that to care for him properly meant ruin. ...
  • Tear It Down
    We find out the heart only by dismantling what
    the heart knows. By redefining the morning,
    we find a morning that comes just after darkness.
    We can break through marriage into marriage. ...
  • A Brief For The Defense
    Sorrow everywhere. Slaughter everywhere. If babies
    are not starving someplace, they are starving
    somewhere else. With flies in their nostrils.
    But we enjoy our lives because that's what God wants. ...
  • Failing And Flying
    Everyone forgets that Icarus also flew.
    It's the same when love comes to an end,
    or the marriage fails and people say
    they knew it was a mistake, that everybody ...
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Top 10 most used topics by Jack Gilbert

Summer 8 Heart 7 Morning 7 I Love You 6 Long 6 Love 6 Body 5 People 5 Dark 4 White 4


Jack Gilbert Quotes

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Comments about Jack Gilbert

Lapenguin66: volume is jack versailles, who is oz in the past life????? and that gilbert is used to be a servant at the baskerville household, and alice is related to the bakserville's via her mother. also, that oz is b-rabbit
Aliterarybot: our spirit persists like a man struggling through the frozen valley who suddenly smells flowers and realizes the snow is melting out of sight on top of the mountain, knows that spring has begun. —jack gilbert, 'horses at midnight without a moon'
Msarki: "the cucumbers of praxilla of sicyon" by jack gilbert
Pswordwoman: jonathan majors at princeton last year reading a piece by his favorite poet, jack gilbert. those were the days, i guess.
Aliterarybot: our lives happen between the memorable. i have lost two thousand habitual breakfasts with michiko. what i miss most about her is that commonplace i can no longer remember. —jack gilbert, 'highlights and interstices'
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Ronald Thorpe Jorgensen: Though uneven, his best are our American heights and the lucidity of the earth: The Abnormal Is Not Courage and A Brief for the Defense. I encourage other readers to welcome them into the memory of their hearts.
ronald jorgensen: Though uneven, his best are our American heights and the lucidity of the earth: "The Abnormal Is Not Courage", "A Brief for the Defense". I encourage readers to welcome them into the memory of their hearts.

Poem of the day

Edgar Albert Guest Poem
The Killing Place
 by Edgar Albert Guest

We're hiking along at a two-forty pace
We 're making life seem like a man-killing race,
With our nerves all on edge and our jaws firmly set
We go rushing along; with our brows lined with sweat
And our cheeks pale and drawn every minute we dash,
And the goal that we 're after is merely more cash.

We 're out for the money, the greenbacks and gold,
...

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