Collected Poems

by Jack Gilbert

  When we get beyond beauty and pleasure

  Where the worms had opened the owl’s chest

  While he was in kindergarten, everybody wanted to play

  Why the mouth? Why is it the mouth we put to mouth

  Woke up suddenly thinking I heard crying

  Year by year he works himself

  Yearning inside the rejoicing. The heart’s famine

  You go in from the cobbled back street

  You hear yourself walking on the snow

  You know I am serious about the whales

  A NOTE ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Jack Gilbert is the author of five volumes of poetry. His many awards include the Yale Younger Poets prize, the National Book Critics Circle Award for Poetry, and the Los Angeles Times Book Prize. His second collection, Monolithos, was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. He served in various countries as a lecturer for the U.S. State Department and has taught at Rikkyo University (Tokyo), San Francisco State University, Smith College, and elsewhere.

  ALSO BY JACK GILBERT

  The Dance Most of All

  Refusing Heaven

  The Great Fires

  Monolithos

  Views of Jeopardy