Jack Gilbert | The Sun Magazine

Jack Gilbert

Jack Gilbert authored five books of poetry before his death in November 2012 at the age of eighty-seven. “All Jack ever wanted to know,” says poet Linda Gregg, with whom he lived for many years, “was that he was awake — that the trees in bloom were almond trees — and to walk down the road to get breakfast. He never cared if he was poor or had to sleep on a park bench.”

— From July 2013
Poetry

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.

from “A Brief for the Defense”

July 2013
What Do You Think? Has something we published moved you? Fired you up? Did we miss the mark? We'd love to hear about it. Send Us A Letter