Jack Gilbert

I'm too poor to buy all of my class books from the little independent bookstore, Bridge Street Books, that some Georgetown professors order their books from, so to support them anyway I bought one book there, and one book of poetry by Jack Gilbert. (Effectively wiping out my savings margin from buying my other books on-line.)

At Centenary, we read Gilbert's book, The Great Fires, which contains one of my favorite love poems of all times. And because Centenary is so awesome, I also had the good fortune of hearing him read it... and forget the words. He's sort of a lovely curmudgeon.

This is one of my favorites from the book I just bought, Refusing Heaven, after years of coveting it. The lesson here is that you should never wait to buy a book a poetry, because poetry makes your life better every day.

In the Beginning

In the morning when Eve and Adam
woke to snow and their minds,
they set out in marvelous clothes
hand in hand under the trees.

Endlessly precision met them,
until they went grinning in time
with no words for their close
escape from that warm monotony.