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    Something To Exchange by Celia Gilbert Book Preview

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    Celia Gilbert Something To Exchange 9781935402343 "Poetry is the only means we have of talking about experience without diminishing it, and Gilbert diminishes nothing and illuminates everything: the struggles and hopes of ancestors, the care for a dying mother, desire's wide spectrum of joy and loss from childhood to mature womanhood. In a phrase, the too muchness of life. In “Morning Glories on the Day of Atonement,” she says, “I have rejected the Laws,/ but can't live free of their shadow.” If a shadow, then nevertheless a paradoxically luminous one, for that is the strange beauty and power of Gilbert's poems—in effect, to enlighten in the fullest possible sense. Such poetry is the rarest kind, and I am thankful to rediscover it in Something to Exchange. —B.H. Fairchild “I can’t see with an angel’s sight,” Celia Gilbert writes, but she can see with the clear vision of a poet who knows both love and loss and continues to make—to embrace—that costly exchange. These poems give us the natural world in stunning beauty and history in all its inconsolable grief. Here, too, is the family in its many layers and dimensions forming a rich portrait of what it means to be human—all through the generous, attentive eye of a poet, one, indeed, who is “among the fortunate with something to exchange.” —Betsy Sholl " Celia Gilbert has published three books of poetry: An Ark of Sorts, winner of the first Jane Kenyon Chapbook Award; Bonfire; and Queen of Darkness. A bi-lingual collection of her poetry is forthcoming in Poland. Her poetry has appeared in Poetry, Southwest Review, Field, and The New Yorker, among other places, and her work has been frequently anthologized. She is the winner of a Discovery Award and a Pushcart Prize. The Poetry Society of America awarded her an Emily Dickinson Prize and a Consuelo Ford Award. She worked as Poetry and Fiction Editor and feature writer for The Boston Phoenix and helped edit Women/Poems. A printmaker and painter as well as a poet, Gilbert grew up in Washington, D.C. After living abroad in England and France, she now lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

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    Something To Exchange by Celia Gilbert Book Preview

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    Celia Gilbert Something To Exchange 9781935402343 "Poetry is the only means we have of talking about experience without diminishing it, and Gilbert diminishes nothing and illuminates everything: the struggles and hopes of ancestors, the care for a dying mother, desire's wide spectrum of joy and loss from childhood to mature womanhood. In a phrase, the too muchness of life. In “Morning Glories on the Day of Atonement,” she says, “I have rejected the Laws,/ but can't live free of their shadow.” If a shadow, then nevertheless a paradoxically luminous one, for that is the strange beauty and power of Gilbert's poems—in effect, to enlighten in the fullest possible sense. Such poetry is the rarest kind, and I am thankful to rediscover it in Something to Exchange. —B.H. Fairchild “I can’t see with an angel’s sight,” Celia Gilbert writes, but she can see with the clear vision of a poet who knows both love and loss and continues to make—to embrace—that costly exchange. These poems give us the natural world in stunning beauty and history in all its inconsolable grief. Here, too, is the family in its many layers and dimensions forming a rich portrait of what it means to be human—all through the generous, attentive eye of a poet, one, indeed, who is “among the fortunate with something to exchange.” —Betsy Sholl " Celia Gilbert has published three books of poetry: An Ark of Sorts, winner of the first Jane Kenyon Chapbook Award; Bonfire; and Queen of Darkness. A bi-lingual collection of her poetry is forthcoming in Poland. Her poetry has appeared in Poetry, Southwest Review, Field, and The New Yorker, among other places, and her work has been frequently anthologized. She is the winner of a Discovery Award and a Pushcart Prize. The Poetry Society of America awarded her an Emily Dickinson Prize and a Consuelo Ford Award. She worked as Poetry and Fiction Editor and feature writer for The Boston Phoenix and helped edit Women/Poems. A printmaker and painter as well as a poet, Gilbert grew up in Washington, D.C. After living abroad in England and France, she now lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

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    Celia Gilbert Something To Exchange 9781935402343 "Poetry is the only means we have of talking about experience without diminishing it, and Gilbert diminishes nothing and illuminates everything: the struggles and hopes of ancestors, the care for a dying mother, desire's wide spectrum of joy and loss from childhood to mature womanhood. In a phrase, the too muchness of life. In “Morning Glories on the Day of Atonement,” she says, “I have rejected the Laws,/ but can't live free of their shadow.” If a shadow, then nevertheless a paradoxically luminous one, for that is the strange beauty and power of Gilbert's poems—in effect, to enlighten in the fullest possible sense. Such poetry is the rarest kind, and I am thankful to rediscover it in Something to Exchange. —B.H. Fairchild “I can’t see with an angel’s sight,” Celia Gilbert writes, but she can see with the clear vision of a poet who knows both love and loss and continues to make—to embrace—that costly exchange. These poems give us the natural world in stunning beauty and history in all its inconsolable grief. Here, too, is the family in its many layers and dimensions forming a rich portrait of what it means to be human—all through the generous, attentive eye of a poet, one, indeed, who is “among the fortunate with something to exchange.” —Betsy Sholl " Celia Gilbert has published three books of poetry: An Ark of Sorts, winner of the first Jane Kenyon Chapbook Award; Bonfire; and Queen of Darkness. A bi-lingual collection of her poetry is forthcoming in Poland. Her poetry has appeared in Poetry, Southwest Review, Field, and The New Yorker, among other places, and her work has been frequently anthologized. She is the winner of a Discovery Award and a Pushcart Prize. The Poetry Society of America awarded her an Emily Dickinson Prize and a Consuelo Ford Award. She worked as Poetry and Fiction Editor and feature writer for The Boston Phoenix and helped edit Women/Poems. A printmaker and painter as well as a poet, Gilbert grew up in Washington, D.C. After living abroad in England and France, she now lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

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    Something To Exchange by Celia Gilbert Book Preview

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    BlazeVOX [books]
    Celia Gilbert Something To Exchange 9781935402343 "Poetry is the only means we have of talking about experience without diminishing it, and Gilbert diminishes nothing and illuminates everything: the struggles and hopes of ancestors, the care for a dying mother, desire's wide spectrum of joy and loss from childhood to mature womanhood. In a phrase, the too muchness of life. In “Morning Glories on the Day of Atonement,” she says, “I have rejected the Laws,/ but can't live free of their shadow.” If a shadow, then nevertheless a paradoxically luminous one, for that is the strange beauty and power of Gilbert's poems—in effect, to enlighten in the fullest possible sense. Such poetry is the rarest kind, and I am thankful to rediscover it in Something to Exchange. —B.H. Fairchild “I can’t see with an angel’s sight,” Celia Gilbert writes, but she can see with the clear vision of a poet who knows both love and loss and continues to make—to embrace—that costly exchange. These poems give us the natural world in stunning beauty and history in all its inconsolable grief. Here, too, is the family in its many layers and dimensions forming a rich portrait of what it means to be human—all through the generous, attentive eye of a poet, one, indeed, who is “among the fortunate with something to exchange.” —Betsy Sholl " Celia Gilbert has published three books of poetry: An Ark of Sorts, winner of the first Jane Kenyon Chapbook Award; Bonfire; and Queen of Darkness. A bi-lingual collection of her poetry is forthcoming in Poland. Her poetry has appeared in Poetry, Southwest Review, Field, and The New Yorker, among other places, and her work has been frequently anthologized. She is the winner of a Discovery Award and a Pushcart Prize. The Poetry Society of America awarded her an Emily Dickinson Prize and a Consuelo Ford Award. She worked as Poetry and Fiction Editor and feature writer for The Boston Phoenix and helped edit Women/Poems. A printmaker and painter as well as a poet, Gilbert grew up in Washington, D.C. After living abroad in England and France, she now lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

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    of 12

    SOMETHING TO EXCHANGE

    Celia Gilbert

    BlazeVOX [books]
    Buffalo, New York

    SOMETHING TO EXCHANGE by Celia Gilbert


    Copyright 2009 Published by BlazeVOX [books] All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced without the publishers written permission, except for brief quotations in reviews. Printed in the United States of America Book design by Geoffrey Gatza First Edition ISBN 13: 9781935402343 Library of Congress Control Number 2009923619

    BlazeVOX [books] 14 Tremaine Ave Kenmore, NY 14217 Editor@blazevox.org

    publisher of weird little books

    BlazeVOX [ books ]
    blazevox.org
    2 4 6 8 0 9 7 5 3 1

    COMING BACK Sometimes I hold your death in my hands, a small stone I turn over and over, wanting to lick it to bring out the shine. Walking down a country road, I see it, the flat, boldly striped petals of the clematis wrapped around its friend the tree. Nights you come, in the second between closing the book and turning off the light, or at four a.m. outside the window riding the ivy, intense, energetic, so young, so fully createda fragrance all at onceno interval between you and existence.

    15

    WILD ASTERS For B. H. 1. Sky opens, a black rain drenches field and flower. Across your throat, a scar; sacrificed under the knife, yet risen, you are helped into your clothes. You return to the old house the frantic dogs, the kitchen clutter. The rain weaves a wreath for you, whispering, This is the time to settle things, but you put down food for the cat, think about the sun coming out and a friend coming over. 2. You sit in the back yard, warmth on your pale skin; balance the checkbook; crochet for the new niece; give yourself a shot of morphine. I try to feel it, bear it with you, that thick thing with the thinnest edge. Flowers at my window. I can see you, a middle-aged woman, like me, but bald, like my five year-old daughter, who tried not to cry when her blond curls fell out.

    16

    I cant. Im stopped like a bird dashed against the glass. I try to believe you will find a way, eyes blue as wild asters, husky voice cajoling us to do the impossible. 3. Time again to lie in bed inventing. It's not the first time for you, either. Once, on the locked ward, when they took your little son away you felt yourself leave your body and float downstairs with him, comforting, Shh, I'm here. At a given instant you'll push through, head first, crowning, to the other side. You'll howl the anger you suppressed for our sake, before only a moment before. 4. Every morning now when I get up you are waking. It could be my last day on earth, but I don't think about it. You open your eyes on the ceiling, a watermark that can't be painted out. When you close your eyes the shadow spreads. Downstairs, your terrier snores in a puddle of sun. It tastes so good, our daughter said her last dawn. Was it the cup I brought to her parched mouth, or something else? How we cling to words as if they could speak.

    17

    ONE SOUNDING FOR A FINAL NOTE She concentrates on a wooden sound, Homely as oar against boat. Her hand, almost still, Like a claw, she says staring. Wears anger, but worn as a ring, Worn, as in weary, nicked. Holds gold to her eyes and sees Hatchings faint as bars. The finger, slender, even more Diminished by its circle, Seeking, moves slowly Over the covers. Breath alone defines Within without. Tiptoe close, look on, wait. Last courtesies remove restraints. On the mantel the prayer wheel whirls Red under the white crane's grasp.

    18

    SEPTEMBER, RUNNING, WITH BIRDS High above, the flock hones itself to winter leanness, a plow. The point enters spilling its message. When one in that two-strands of dark moves out I'm uneasy until the others regroup, enfold it. It seems there is no possibility of loss, the community knows where it must go. Threaded, no one can fall as it heads over. Behind its wake, the greedy heart pumps, wants time, or better, time stopped.

    19

    THE SABBATH The Sabbath is a Queen and a Bride. Jewish Liturgy 1. The bird is wooden, black and white, lifts wings that ripple when a string is pulled like a swell rising in a calm sea. It makes us children again. Our stomachs flutter, we ascend and soar. Bird from Brazil, a toy. The host lets us play. Of course I believe in fairy tales even the smallest crumb leads out of the forest. 2. The host chants, God who created the world rested on the seventh day; his curls cluster, black grapes under a silvery yarmulke. He lights the candles. Our first Sabbath, we Jews without God. What does it mean when he motions the halos of light towards his face? Does he shield himself from it, or bathe himself in it?

    20

    3. Who asked that chaos be cleaved what divine urgency? I'm sure the sky keeps her tryst with water. She throws herself in, but always separates. With every division pain and desire the only compensation. 4. As the whisper of dusk recalls the void that was, the candlelight prays with us, receive the Bride. She comes forward, she flickers, or do we tremble? 5. A story from the host's mother, her gray hair girlishly long, German Jew, saved from the trains, reprieved in Brussels, fled to Brazil. The challah yellow as yolk. Gold is cold. Salt bestows crystals. Teach the mouth, bitter, to praise.

    21

    Teach what it is to be saved when mother, father, brother, sisterlost. But she is here, in America, with the grandchildren tucked in her wallet, and her fears. 6. America I love you, America, you are good to the stranger, generous to all. People smile here. They are the luckiest people. They have freedom. America. America. She returns the poem to her purse, blushing at our applause. Who can count how many times she's folded and unfolded it? 7. The bird suspended in the corner, Sabbath's time without east or west. Beasts kneel under resting stars, weary, too, of watching a box car on its slow passage through the woods.

    22

    8. She journeys through the world and God pursues. When the door opens the flame bends. Let the wind come to the feast. Rising and falling, the son's voice soothes his mother. Give me bread and salt, says the Bride. I will fly to every country. High over the Andes, I will teach my children to nest in air.

    23

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