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The Dance Most Of All: Poems (2009)

by Jack Gilbert(Favorite Author)

4.12 of 5 Votes: 5

ISBN

0307270769 (ISBN13: 9780307270764)

languge

English

genre

Poetry

publisher

Knopf

review 1: Jack Gilbert's poems always seem to be hovering over a lonely pool of nostalgia but the pain is always so immediate and acute that he doesn't allow memory its final say. In his past work his strong use of declarative sentences pinpoints the pain in order to diagnose it. In "The Dance Most of All" it was nice to see him recall pain and wonder about it, finally diving into that pool of nostalgia he has been hovering over for so long. Memory gets its share of attention turning what most believe to be Gilbert's last work into a perfectly elegiac collection that I certainly do not recognize as "the same old poem."
review 2: The poems here, in Gilbert's most recent volume, are, as his poems always are, deeply personal. Using atmosphere and memory and contemplation t... moreo remember the localities and people who've mattered to him, he doggedly maintains his elegiac witness to the life he's lived and those in it with him. They are poems of loneliness at the end of a long life. At the same time, even while reading a poem like "Elegy," which is about a woman he still longs for, the reader is always aware these poems are marked and smoothed by an intrinsic dignity. I came to Gilbert late, only a few months ago. But I'm glad I did. His poetry makes my hair stand on end. less

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