Thursday, September 20, 2012

Jack Gilbert, me and you



Have you ever read Jack Gilbert's poetry? It's pretty astonishing -- wild and angry and incredibly passionate. I got a copy of Collected Poems in the mail yesterday and, as is my wont, flipped it open. This is what I read:

Meaning Well

Marrying is like somebody
throwing the baby up.
It happy and then throwing it
higher. To the ceiling,
Which jars the loose bulb
and it goes out
as the baby starts down.

Don't be tempted to wonder about yourself when you read poetry as if all words were from a collective unconscious. Don't be tempted to worry or wonder about me. My mind is drawn toward Jung and the notion of synchronicity or the string theorist's games of chance. Or maybe it's just words on a page, a random stringing together. Meaning well.

4 comments:

  1. Random stringing, perhaps, yet with a deep resonance that has the power to save us.

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  2. pretty much my favorite living poet.

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  3. the collective unconscious. i've always had a thing for that.

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  4. No accidents. I love randomly cracking open a book of poems and seeing what finds me.

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