Vox Populi
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Jack Gilbert: A Brief for the Defense
Sorrow everywhere. Slaughter everywhere. If babies
are not starving someplace, they are starving
somewhere else. With flies in their nostrils.
But we enjoy our lives because that’s what God wants.
Otherwise the mornings before summer dawn would not
be made so fine. The Bengal tiger would not
be fashioned so miraculously well. The poor women
at the fountain are laughing together between
the suffering they have known and the awfulness
in their future, smiling and laughing while somebody
in the village is very sick. There is laughter
every day in the terrible streets of Calcutta,
and the women laugh in the cages of Bombay.
If we deny our happiness, resist our satisfaction,
we lessen the importance of their deprivation.
We must risk delight. We can do without pleasure,
but not delight. Not enjoyment. We must have
the stubbornness to accept our gladness in the ruthless
furnace of this world. To make injustice the only
measure of our attention is to praise the Devil.
If the locomotive of the Lord runs us down,
we should give thanks that the end had magnitude.
We must admit there will be music despite everything.
We stand at the prow again of a small ship
anchored late at night in the tiny port
looking over to the sleeping island: the waterfront
is three shuttered cafés and one naked light burning.
To hear the faint sound of oars in the silence as a rowboat
comes slowly out and then goes back is truly worth
all the years of sorrow that are to come.
~~~~
Copyright 2014 Jack Gilbert
Jack Gilbert (1925 – 2012) won many awards for his poetry, including a Guggenheim and a Lannan Literary Award. Over his five-decade-long career, he published five full collections of poetry, including Collected Poems (Knopf, 2014).
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I memorized this poem a while back, I love it so. And I think he is one of the best poets, certainly one of my favorites.
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Mine too, Lisa. Thanks for saying so.
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I love this poem so much I debate with it in the title poem of my next book.
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The epigraph for my title poem:
Sorrow everywhere. Slaughter everywhere. If babies
are not starving someplace, they are starving
somewhere else. With flies in their nostrils.
But we enjoy our lives because that’s what God wants.
—Jack Gilbert
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Beautiful lines, Chivas. Your next book is going to be great.
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Thank you, Ellen. The ancient paradox: if God is good, why is there evil in the world? If God doesn’t exist, how is there such beauty in the world?
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A great and timely poem.
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Isn’t it though?
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I was with Gilbert until his final sentence:
To hear the faint sound of oars in the silence as a rowboat
comes slowly out and then goes back is truly worth
all the years of sorrow that are to come.
Putting aside the strong poetic craft, and much to praise in and about the poem, I personally can’t accept this as an ethical end. Though, admittedly, I have had similar sorts of numinous moments. Alas, some of them now seem specious.
I find the comments amazingly compelling, but especially the one left us by Alfred Corn. Who inspired this one.
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Thanks, Jim.
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“We must admit there will be music despite everything.” — and poetry too! Poetry too!
In the early 80s, Kurt (Brown) was, for many years, in a writing group in Amherst, MA, with Jack & Linda, & a few other poets. He often spoke about that experience, how deeply serious and committed they all were. I can’t quite remember who he said the other poets were, unfortunately.
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I think perhaps Doug Anderson was part of that group.
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Yes, you’re right, Mike — Doug was indeed part of that writers’ group — and Kurt and Doug were good friends and stayed in touch. I well remember Kurt and Doug talking on the phone for long conversations…
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Doug is a wonderful poet and an important part of the VP community, as are you, dear Laure-Anne.
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I consider myself sooo lucky to have gone to a workshop run by Jack and Linda Gregg back in the 90’s, also before the Great Fires poems. This is one of my favorites. So many of us miss him.
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Thanks, Deborah. I’m glad I could place your poem next to his today.
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Yes, Michael, I was so delighted to see Jack’s poem on the same day as mine! Thanks so much!
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I knew Jack and had the great privilege of traveling with him for a week in Montana, where I was coordinating his visit to a tribal college and schools at Fort Belknap Indian Reservation. The people there, even the teenagers, were astounded by his honesty and humility as well as his wisdom. I think he inspired many. (Every night I went back to my hotel room and wrote down everything I could remember that he’d said, either while we were driving or talking with students or eating dinner.) This was in 1995, after The Great Fires had come out–I’m with those of you who keep that book by my bed, as it’s the collection I reach for regularly. I trust his work will survive!
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Thanks, Meg. Do you still have those notes you took about what he said?
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I imagine they are in a journal in my pile of journals! I really should dig them out one of these days…
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You must have been so elated to be his friend and driver! How fabulous an experience it must have been, dear Meg!
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That’s an amazing poem
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I love this poem so much.
“We can do without pleasure,
but not delight. Not enjoyment. We must have
the stubbornness to accept our gladness in the ruthless
furnace of this world.”
This stood out to me so clearly as I watch videos of children in Gaza still playing, families still sharing meals. To say “alhamdulillah” despite war’s insistence. This is what brings me back to poetry, a way to turn towards both grief and gratitude, to sit with suffering and still find gladness in the fact that we exist.
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Beautifully said, Moudi. Thank you. Poetry gives us the strength to survive tragedy.
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Such an under-noticed genius. Thanks for bringing him to the front here, Mike!
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Thank you, Syd.
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One of my favorite poets. I will always regret not seeing him read in Berkeley while I lived there. I have followed his global wanderings a bit myself: I now live in Pittsburgh, once lived in Berkeley, and I’ve visited Japan and the Greek Islands with hist poetry in my suitcase. “We must have / the stubbornness to accept our gladness in the ruthless / furnace of this world.” — a very steel city sentiment! I am always sort of surprised he is not more celebrated in Pittsburgh. Has anyone written a biography on him? Thank you for allowing me to reread this today! Timely as ever.
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A timely poem, one I hadn’t seen before. Thank you, Michael. I’m impelled to menion, as no doubt most reders here know, that Gilbert was born & educated in Pittsburgh.
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Pittsburgh has produced many poets. A small city with a big heart.
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”We must risk delight. We can do without pleasure, / but not delight….”
He says so much, so succinctly. Love this.
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As do I.
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It’s probably true, yep, that most of us have a conscience that is all too easy. And if we don’t have one, this poem is a recipe for giving it to us. Still (and I truly don’t know how to explain it) I have to express a preference for individuals who went to the scaffold rather than make a pact with evil and horror, people who didn’t just lie back in a hammock, so to speak, with a margarita close by as they watched the latest thriller on Netflix, something to distract them from thoughts about unfortunates crammed into Alligator Alcatraz, or girls raped in front of their parents, or starving kids everywhere on the planet, or the imprisoned who are getting their fingernails ripped out to make them talk.
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What is poetry’s place in an evil time, Alfred?
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To tell and show what is happening. To say NO to those in power. To offer aid and comfort to those who have been harmed. To remind us that we have no future if we do not seek justice and peace with all our hearts, minds, souls, and strength.
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Amen.
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Thank you, Alfred. This seems spot on to me.
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Thank you!
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If there is hope left for us in these days. and if Dickinson’s feathers will no longer help us to stay aloft… let it be Jack Gilbert’s words in our wilderness, let it be..oh, let it be…
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Señor Gilbert’s poetry lesson. Who doesn’t need to soak this in with whatever day heaven hath given? He is a staple in the poetry cellar, like an immense cured ham that has waited, hanging all year, and will get us through a bad winter, if we come to lack everything else.
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Indeed, Sean, indeed.
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I read with Jack in Berkeley, CA many years back. He was brilliant. I never put his book, “The Great Fires” away, it’s always where I can see it, lay my hands on it, and I’ve read it over and over. His work so speaks to me. This poem is a marvelous example and just what is needed to see us through today in the political madness of our times.
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Thank you, Stellasue. Although I never met Gilbert, he speaks to me in a way no one else ever has.
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Jack Gilbert, Raymond Carver… I could spend the day with these greats and never feel a need to do another thing.
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Yes!
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If there is hope left for is
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Jack was one of the greats. Before I knew who he was, I saw him read from The Great Fires , and I’ve never forgotten how unafraid he was. This particular poem’s message is crucial right now. Pass it on.
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Yes, Jack Gilbert was one of the best poets America has produced. This poem shows his mastery.
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