Jack Gilbert

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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 then worked as a door-to-door salesman, an exterminator, and a steelworker. He graduated from the University of Pittsburgh in 1954, where 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

His work is distinguished by simple lyricism and straightforward clarity of tone. 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

Gilbert was a close friend of the poet Linda Gregg who was once his student and with whom he was in a relationship for six years.[5][4] He was married to Michiko Nogami,[6] another former student and a language instructor based in San Francisco, now deceased, about whom he wrote many of his poems.[4] He was also in a significant long term relationship with the poet Laura Ulewicz during the late fifties and early sixties in San Francisco. 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

  • Views of Jeopardy Yale University Press, 1962
  • Monolithos Graywolf Press, 1984, ISBN 9780915308422
  • Kochan (1984), A limited edition chapbook of nine poems, two of which were later republished in The Great Fires: Poems 1982-1992; seven of the poems have not been otherwise published, including "Nights and Four Thousand Mornings," the longest poem Gilbert has published
  • The Great Fires: Poems 1982-1992 Knopf, 1994
  • Refusing Heaven Knopf, 2005
  • Tough Heaven: Poems of Pittsburgh Pond Road Press, 2006
  • Transgressions: Selected Poems Bloodaxe, 2006
  • The Dance Most of All Knopf, 2010
  • Collected Poems Knopf, 2012

Novels

Two erotic novels co-authored with Jean Maclean and published by Olympia Press under the pseudonym Tor Kung:

  • My Mother Taught Me (1964)
  • Forever Ecstasy (1968)

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 Penner, John (14 November 2012). "Jack Gilbert dies at 87; unconventional poet knew fame and obscurity". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 14 November 2012. 
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 Profile at Poets.org
  3. ↑ Haglund, David (13 November 2012). "Jack Gilbert, American Poet, Dies at 87". Slate. Retrieved 14 November 2012. 
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 4.3 4.4 4.5 4.6 Poetry Foundation profile
  5. ↑ Slate article
  6. ↑ http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/14/books/collected-poems-by-jack-gilbert.html?_r=0
  7. ↑ 7.0 7.1 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 

Further reading

  • Genesis West volume one published in the Fall of 1962 is a celebration of Jack Gilbert's poetry. This volume includes poems by Jack and interview of Jack by Gordon Lish.
  • Allen Randolph, Jody. Interview with Jack Gilbert. Lannan Foundation: Readings and Conversations Series. VHS. Los Angeles: Lannan Foundation, 1997.

External links

Authority control
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