Celebrating Jack Gilbert: Collected Poems

12 MAY 2012 — saturday

Jack Gilbert will be there in person to enjoy the celebration of his magnificent new book, Jack Gilbert: Collected Poems, with readings from his poetry by Linda Gregg, C.S. Giscombe, Joseph Stroud, Donald Brees, Bill Mayer, Larry Felson, and special surprise guests, Richard Silberg will intro, sales of the book will benefit Poetry Flash, Pegasus Downtown, 2349 Shattuck Avenue, Berkeley, 7:30 (510/649-1320, www.pegasusbookstore.com)

More about the event
Linda Gregg's recent book is All of it Singing: New and Selected Poems. Poet W.S. Merwin praised her poems: "They are original in the way that really matters: they speak clearly of their source. They are inseparable from the surprising, unrolling, eventful, pure current of their language, and they convey at once the pain of individual loss, a steady and utterly personal radiance." C.S. Giscombe's recent book of poetry is Prairie Style. Marjorie Perloff says, "In a series of dense, aphoristic, interrelated meditations, Giscombe unearths a unique "Afro-Prairie" world of love and loss….This is a haunting and beautiful book." He teaches at University of California, Berkeley. Joseph Stroud's recent book is Of This World: New and Selected Poems." Jane Hirshfield says of it, "One of the finest collections of poems I've read in years---intelligent, sensuous, moving, full of human insight." Donald Brees is an old friend of Jack Gilbert's; they traveled together in Greece. His poems have appeared in Kindled Terraces: American Poets in Greece and Open Field: Poems from Group 18. Bill Mayer's new book is Articulate Matter. Grace Shulman says, "The best of these poems are transcendent, bringing the sacred into common life." Mayer is a professional photographer who worked with Tony Keppelman on Hummingbirds, a photographic essay. Larry Felson is the author of Salt and Silver and is one of five poets featured in the anthology Five on the Western Edge. Bill Mayer and Larry Felson are longtime members of Jack Gilbert's writing group.