Jack Gilbert’s collection of poems, “Refusing Heaven”, deserves the second round of attention its paperback reissue has received for its beautiful reflection upon the American poet’s adult life.
“A Brief for the Defense” begins the collection with a justification for the enjoyment of life amidst the world’s misery. The first verses sound clichéd: “Sorrow everywhere. Slaughter everywhere. If babies / are not starving someplace, they are starving / somewhere else. With flies in their nostrils.” However, the poet’s project is sincere without being sentimental, and his phrasing is strong and direct. His affirmation of laughter amid others’ suffering is that of a man deeply affected by others’ pain.
“…We enjoy our lives because that’s what God wants,” he says, “Otherwise the mornings before summer dawn would not / be made so fine.” He further declares, “If we deny our happiness, resist our satisfaction, / we lessen the importance of their deprivation. We must risk delight.” Throughout, the poet risks optimism and honesty despite the uncertain position of a man at the end of life.
In other poems Gilbert compares youth and old age, such as in “Bring in the Gods” and “The Lost Hotels of Paris.” In the latter, he describes old age feeding on the experiences of youth. While he was only blessed with youth once, Gilbert more fully appreciates the experiences of youth in the memories of his old age. The consolations of memory, age and perspective are “more than enough” for our speaker in “Hotels,” yet “Gods” cuts another way, as an elderly speaker responds, when asked if he is at peace: “I am [still] hungry / for what I am becoming.” The restlessness and yearning of youth do not fade, the author suggests, only its myopia does.
“’Tis Here! ’Tis Here! ’Tis Gone! (The Nature of Presence)” is Gilbert’s most philosophical poem, weaving together many threads of the collection’s thought. He presents the human essence extending beyond material reality: “Consciousness is not matter dreaming. If all the stars were added together they would still not know it’s spring.” And he celebrates the wonders beyond the “fact of” things, exalting perception’s subjectivity, a “white horse / in moonlight is more white than when it stands / in sunlight. And even then it depends on whether / a bell is ringing.” He is irresistible in such outings; his love of life is contagious.
The consistent depth of the poems takes pauses, such as in “The Reinvention of Happiness,” which documents in four lines a languid moment in a medieval European town. There is an intimacy in such simple moments with Gilbert; these rests suit the rhythm of the collection.
In “Metier,” near the end of the collection, Gilbert acknowledges and affirms his poetical stance, implicitly answering critics: “The Greek fishermen do not / play on the beach and I don’t / write funny poems.” Many of his poems are funny, but he is right that he doesn’t write “funny poems.” His literary project is serious, and it is exhilarating in an age of evasion and sarcasm to see him proclaim it.
Refusing Heaven by Jack Gilbert is available March 12 in Knopf paperback.
