a visit with jack gilbert

A friend shared a link to this great piece about the poet Jack Gilbert who, at past 80 years of age, recently won the National Book Critics Circle Award for his newest collection Refusing Heaven.

photo by Kate Davidson, NPR

You can visit the NPR website by clicking here and while there, be sure to click on the links provided to hear the inspiring interview with this reclusive poet who has spent most of his life outside the usual literary circles, stages, and spotlights, and whose poems speak poignantly to the two sides of the love and grief coin. Also included are clickable links that will allow you to listen to Gilbert reading several of his most lovely poems, "Infidelity," "Refusing Heaven," "By Small and Small," and "Getting Away With It."

I love Gilbert for his unabashed refusal to play the literary "game" (in the interview, he asserts that he is not a "professional poet," he's a "real poet"). I love Gilbert for saying there are just things about this life he doesn't like ("I don't like that my hair is thinning. I don't like that two of the women I loved died.") I love Gilbert for talking about how he is fond of making lists, including lists of things that he loves and wants to accomplish - a kindred spirit! I make lists too -- lists of things I love, things I want to do. Sometimes I have made a list of things I'd already done, just so I could cross something off of a to-do list. I am sure that Jack Gilbert (a man who once listed "to be in love before I die" on a list of things to do), would understand.

on grief

"you met me" c. '08 annie farnsworth
7.5" x 10.5" mixed media collage on recycled pasteboard.

I wanted to say again tonight how much I appreciate my friends. They've been there for me the whole time and willing to help but I've resisted opening up. I think it is hard to remember that true friends care about all of it, your whole experience, not just your sunny days. They want to be there for you in tough times too, but they can't if you never let them see that you're having one. And when you come right down to it, not letting them is a little like only wanting people to see you on a good hair day; it's dishonest and more than a little vain. I think it is hard, particularly, for people who are in the "helping professions" to show weakness or ask for help. We like to think we are here to help other people and that we can't do that if our own shit is falling apart. I had a great "talk" with a friend about the Shadow sides to personality; how if you do not acknowledge or allow them to be integrated into your life, they will come out and bite you in the ass when you're not expecting it.

My "Shadow" could be this whiny, weak, schoolgirl part of me with the unrequited love, who just wants to cry and listen to Fiona Apple and say "what if...?" and "if only I..." Let's just go ahead and call her "Baby." If I had acknowledged her earlier, let my truth show, weeks, even months ago... this process might not have been so difficult.

But maybe Baby isn't my "Shadow" at all. Maybe she's just a very honest part of my human experience, the part that feels those very human (but in some circles, unattractive) feelings like sadness and fear and rejection and jealousy and needing attention. Aren't those all very real parts of the human experience? Why do I fight so hard to keep her out of sight? I'm starting to realize that my Shadow is actually more like a Feelings-Nazi, who doesn't like Baby and is always telling her to suck it up. She walks around with a clipboard and checks things off, and dislikes weaknesses in others as much as she dislikes them in herself. Her main job is to prevent us from letting those weaknesses show. She wants us to be superwoman, to always keep it "together," to always be philosophical about everything. She is always practical and analytical and is afraid of being used or taken advantage of. She puts up walls, pushes people away. She is the part of me who thought things would be okay, and she was wrong and I am really pissed off at her right now. So I'm sorry if i seem a little whiny right now; if it seems like all i do with paper is make fires and hurricanes. Clipboard Lady can stuff it. It's Baby's turn right now.



"...there is no way around grief.
Can’t climb over it,
can’t crawl under it and,
as clever as I’ve tried to be,
no way to sneak around it.
The only way out of grief is through it."
~ Betty Ann Ruttledge ~