Aftermath: Poems

by Sandra M. Gilbert

"Sandra Gilbert's poems are beautifully situated at the intersection of craft and feeling." -Billy Collins

The title of this collection-at times mournful, sardonic, and joyous-refers to the grief in the wake of loss. Yet these poems aren't just about the consequences of loss but also about the complex experiences of endurance, acquiescence, and rebirth that, with luck, mark the aftermath of sorrow.

from "Aftermath: Kite"
But the thought is only paper after all,
a soul that clings to a stick, tears open, shreds
as if it's flung to the ground in a final shiny fall,
and at last the line goes limp, the climbing ends.
Beyond the rush & sweep, an arc of silence-
though a mind imagined this flight, & proved it once.

Genres: Poetry

160 pages, Hardcover

First published July 1, 2011

About the author

Sandra M. Gilbert was an American literary critic and poet who published in the fields of feminist literary criticism, feminist theory, and psychoanalytic criticism. She was best known for her collaborative critical work with Susan Gubar, with whom she co-authored, among other works, The Madwoman in the Attic (1979). Madwoman in the Attic is widely recognized as a text central to second-wave feminism. She was Professor Emerita of English at the University of California, Davis.
Gilbert lived in Berkeley, California, and lived, until 2008, in Paris, France. Her husband, Elliot L. Gilbert, was chair of the Department of English at University of California, Davis, until his death in 1991. She also had a long-term relationship with David Gale, mathematician at University of California, Berkeley, until his death in 2008.

Reviews

[Emmaline · Rating 4 out of 5]

Beautiful, raw, sometimes unexpectedly funny.

[keondra freemyn · Rating 3 out of 5]

Disconnect

I did not find much in these poems. There was nothing there for me. A bit too esoteric - I just couldn't catch many of the cultural references. However, the collection is clearly high caliber and was enjoyable from a poetic craft perspective. Would not reread.

[Christina M M Rau · Rating 2 out of 5]

Language of words versus language of mathematics sometimes seem worlds apart but sometimes they are the same. Sandra M. Gilbert deals with the death of her math-minded husband in the poetry collection After Math, a pun and a tribute. Some poems seemed to be finished but when I turned the page, I saw they were much longer, and then some poems seemed to end too quickly. The strongest parts of the collection are the sonnets and the Part III sequence also entitled After Math. The diction and sensory details scratch out the language of loss in mostly non-cliched ways. Part I unfortunately almost undoes the impact of it with a bit of confused focus and alliteration that becomes distracting rather than building tone. If this collection were shorter with the one focus, it would have stood stronger for me.

[Christina Borgoyn · Rating 2 out of 5]

took too long to get through and lost my momentum