More than a decade after Jack Gilbert’s The Great Fires , this highly anticipated new collection shows the continued development of a poet who has remained fierce in his avoidance of the beaten path. In Refusing Heaven , Gilbert writes compellingly about the commingled passion, loneliness, and sometimes surprising happiness of a life spent in luminous understanding of his own blessings and shortcomings: “The days and nights wasted . . . Long hot afternoons / watching ants while the cicadas railed / in the Chinese elm about the brevity of life.” Time slows down in these poems, as Gilbert creates an aura of curiosity and wonder at the fact of existence itself. Despite powerful intermittent griefs–over the women he has parted from or the one lost to cancer (an experience he captures with intimate precision)–Gilbert’s choice in this volume is to “refuse heaven.” He prefers this life, with its struggle and alienation and delight, to any paradise. His work is both a rebellious assertion of the call to clarity and a profound affirmation of the world in all its aspects. It braces the reader in its humanity and heart.

杰克•吉尔伯特（Jack Gilbert），美国当代诗人。1925年生于匹兹堡，幼年丧父，挣钱养家，高中辍学，开始谋生；阴差阳错上了匹兹堡大学，开始写诗。毕业后远走巴黎，开始浪迹天涯。曾在世界各地漫游和隐居，曾经历多次爱情，又曾在多所大学任教。著有《大火》、《拒绝天堂》、《独一无二的舞蹈》等五部诗集。曾获耶鲁青年诗人奖、全国书评界奖、洛杉矶时报图书奖等多种诗歌奖项。2012年3月《诗全集》出版。