Jack Gilbert

For other uses, see Jack Gilbert (disambiguation).

Jack Gilbert (February 18, 1925 – November 13, 2012) was an American poet.[1]

Early life and education

Born and raised in the Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania neighborhood of East Liberty,[2] he attended Peabody High School before failing out. Gilbert then worked as a door-to-door salesman, an exterminator, and a steelworker. Due to a clerical error, 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. Later, he received his master's degree from San Francisco State University in 1963.[1]

Career

After college, Gilbert went to Paris and worked briefly at the Herald Tribune before moving to Italy. Gilbert spent several years there before moving to San Francisco and then to New York, where his life as a poet began. His work has been distinguished by simple lyricism and straightforward clarity of tone, as well as a resonating control over his emotions: “We look up at the stars and they are / not there. We see memory / of when they were, once upon a time. / And that too is more than enough.” His first book of poetry, Views of Jeopardy, (1962) won the Yale Younger Poets Prize and was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize,[1] while Gilbert was quickly recognized and made into something of a media darling.[3] He then retreated from his earlier activity in the San Francisco poetry scene, where he had participated in Jack Spicer's Poetry as Magic workshop,[2] and moved to Europe. Living on a Guggenheim Fellowship[4] he toured 15 countries as a lecturer on American Literature for the U.S. State Department and lived in England, Denmark, and Greece.[2] Nearly the whole of his career after the publication of his first book of poetry was marked by what he described as "a self-imposed isolation."[4] His books of poetry were few and far between; however he continuously maintained his writing and contributed to The American Poetry Review, Genesis West, The Quarterly, Poetry, Ironwood, The Kenyon Review, and The New Yorker.

Personal life

Much of Gilbert's work is about his relationships with women. While in Italy, he met Gianna Gelmetti, a romantic partner who appears frequently in his work. The relationship ended after a year. Gilbert was a close friend of the poet Linda Gregg, who he met when she was nineteen and his student in San Francisco, and with whom he was in a relationship for six years. Of the poet, Gregg once said, "All Jack ever wanted to know was that he was awake—that the trees in bloom were almond trees—and to walk down the road to get breakfast. He never cared if he was poor or had to sleep on a park bench."[4][5] He was also in a significant long-term relationship with the poet Laura Ulewicz during the late fifties and early sixties in San Francisco. Ulewicz was a great influence on his early work, in fact much of his characteristic style for which he later became known came directly from her, and his first book was dedicated to her. Gilbert also was in a relationship with Michiko Nogami,[6] another former student and a Japanese language instructor 21 years his junior, about whom he wrote many of his poems. Nogami died of cancer at the age of 36.[4] Gilbert died on November 13, 2012 in Berkeley, California.[1] He was 87. On April 15, 2013 it was announced that Gilbert's Collected Poems was a finalist for the 2013 Pulitzer Prize in Poetry. The Pulitzer jury's citation read:

“ a half century of poems reflecting a creative author’s commitment to living fully and honestly and to producing straightforward work that illuminates everyday experience with startling clarity.[7] ”

Awards

Poetry collections

Novels

Gilbert wrote two erotic novels with Jean Maclean which were published by the short-lived Danish Olympia Press under the pseudonym Tor Kung:[11]

Anthologies

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 Penner, John (14 November 2012). "Jack Gilbert dies at 87; unconventional poet knew fame and obscurity". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 14 November 2012.
  2. 1 2 3 Profile at Poets.org
  3. ↑ Haglund, David (13 November 2012). "Jack Gilbert, American Poet, Dies at 87". Slate. Retrieved 14 November 2012.
  4. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Poetry Foundation profile
  5. ↑ Slate article
  6. ↑ Garner, Dwight (March 13, 2012). "'Collected Poems' by Jack Gilbert". The New York Times.
  7. 1 2 The Pulitzer Prizes | Citation
  8. ↑ Fellow Guggenhein Foundation.
  9. ↑ Jack Jilbert:Poetry Award Lannan Foundation, official web site.
  10. ↑ The Pulitzer Prizes - Finalists, Columbia University, 2013, retrieved 8 April 2013
  11. ↑ Piepenbring, Dan. "My Mother Taught Me: A Poet's Misadventures in Erotica".

Further reading

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