Reviews for The Dance Most of All

The average rating for The Dance Most of All based on 2 reviews is 4 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2009-12-30 00:00:00 Jeffrey Gerson The poems here, in Gilbert's most recent volume, are, as his poems always are, deeply personal. Using atmosphere and memory and contemplation to 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.

Review # 2 was written on 2011-06-03 00:00:00 Miguel Almeida Jack Gilbert has a new book of poems and I must say I am pleasantly surprised by them. I figured he was doing more retread than original art, but he isn't. Mr. Gilbert is a very gifted poet with a brilliant ear. Although his poems are narrative, there also exists a dynamic song within them. Gilbert has never been afraid to deal with his emotions. He has had at least three deep and loving relationships. His most famous one was with a Japanese woman who died of cancer. He remains friends with Linda Gregg who he was romantically involved with before his greatest love, Michiko Nogami. The interesting story about Jack Gilbert is that he was discovered by Gordon Lish in California while Lish was cavorting with the likes of Ken Kesey and Neal Cassady. The remarkable literary magazine Genesis West was being edited by Gordon Lish and Gilbert found his way into the pages of that great rag.  If there ever was a collectible litmag available still at a reasonable price, this is it. In this particular volume of Genesis West, Lish includes poems of Jack Gilbert, an interview, and a celebration by other luminaries for the poetic genius already recognized by his peers. The year of publication was 1962 when Gilbert was thirty-eight years old, and just after he had won the Yale Young Poets Award with his first volume, Views of Jeopardy. Shortly thereafter Gilbert would leave for Greece, not to return for twenty years until Lish published his second volume of poems titled Monolithos: Poems, 1962 and 1982. Gordon Lish has been getting quite a bit of press lately, mostly negative, for his editing and shaping of the work of Raymond Carver. Lish is an acquired taste, but one you must continually have once you get the hang of him. He is noted for teaching fiction writing for over thirty years, being an editor at Knopf for over twenty, and in the seventies being the editor of Esquire who brought the likes of Carver and Truman Capote to the national stage.