One of American’s most beautiful poets, Jack Gilbert, has passed away. He was 87. He is easily the most important poet to me as a reader and as a writer.

WAKING AT NIGHT

The blue river is gray at morning

and evening. There is twilight

at dawn and dusk. I lie in the dark

wondering if this quiet in me now

is a beginning or an end.

 (from The Dance Most of All)

Some links below:

Page on Gilbert by the Academy of American Poets

Notes from a Poet’s Well-Observed Life (NPR)

Chard deNiord’s interview with Jack Gilbert.

David Orr’s review of Gilbert’s Collected Poems

LA Times feature on Jack Gilbert

Poetry Foundation page on Gilbert

A Paris Review interview from 2005  (required reading)

Poem “A Brief for the Defense”