A milestone publication of the late Christopher Gilbert’s poetry, introduced by National Book Award-winner Terrance Hayes
Turning into Dwelling
Poems
- “Gilbert thinks about thinking in a manner that’s both impressively complex and subtly tender.”—New York Times Book Review
Lord, the anguish of my Black block rises up in me
like a grief. My only chance to go beyond being breach—
to resist being quelled as a bit of inner city entropy—
is to speak up for the public which has birthed me.
To build this language house. To make this case. Create.
This loving which lives outside time. Lord, this is time.
—from “Turning into Dwelling”
like a grief. My only chance to go beyond being breach—
to resist being quelled as a bit of inner city entropy—
is to speak up for the public which has birthed me.
To build this language house. To make this case. Create.
This loving which lives outside time. Lord, this is time.
—from “Turning into Dwelling”
Christopher Gilbert’s award-winning Across the Mutual Landscape has become an underground classic of contemporary American poetry. Now reissued and presented with Gilbert’s never-before-published last manuscript written before his death in 2007, Turning into Dwelling offers new readers the original music and vision of one of our most inventive poets.
$16.00
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Praise
- “Restlessly introspective. . . . To read [Gilbert] is to hear him ask how the mind works. . . . Superb, dissatisfied, explorations of African-American identity.”—American Poets
- “A powerful, essential black poet who has been overlooked for far too long.”—Shelf Awareness
- “Extraordinary. . . . Gilbert’s poetry fluctuates between incantation and reverie. . . . Nothing short of miraculous.”—Arcadia Magazine
- “Dazzling. . . . [Terrance] Hayes calls Gilbert’s ahead-of-its-time poetry ‘such strange brilliance,’ and he is undoubtedly right.”—Publishers Weekly, starred review