I was just reading about a poet, Jack Gilbert, who is (rightly) being celebrated all over the web today. His poetry is evocative and subtle, but direct and raw…it has the power to open old desires, reawaken some forgotten ache.

One site refers to his “Collected Poems” as “almost certainly among the two or three most important books of poetry that will be published this year.”

Even if it is (and the bits I’ve read really are enticing), I abscond from “important” works of poetry. Not that poetry isn’t important (it’s my life-blood), but, to me, poetry should be sumptuous–a feast for the senses, both felt and hinted at. When poetry is touted as “important”, it loses its self-respect (yes, I believe poetry has a sense of self-respect) and feeds into the pseudo-intellectuals who propagate its “importance”.

Read poetry for the beauty of the work, the heady sense of stepping headlong into another essence than the usual day-to-day. For instance…

“If we deny our happiness, resist our satisfaction,
we lessen the importance of their deprivation.
We must risk delight…We must have
the stubbornness to accept our gladness in the ruthless
furnace of this world…”
~from “A Brief for the Defense”

and:

“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.
By insisting on love we spoil it, get beyond
affection and wade mouth-deep into love.
We must unlearn the constellations to see the stars…”
~from “Tear it Down”

Jack Gilbert takes you, holds you captive for a moment in his works of blood-and-beauty, and will keep you enticed. As all incredible poetry should.

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