The Orangery

by Gilbert Sorrentino

Poetry. First published in 1978, THE ORANGERY is one of Gilbert Sorrentino's most memorable collections of poetry. Each poem is a variation on orange, which appears and reappears as a color, a fruit, a memory, an intrusion, a word seeking rhyme, a presence expected and awaited. As William Bronk wrote upon its original publication, In THE ORANGERY Sorrentino makes things which are hard, gaudy and sometimes scary... They are made to last.

Genres: Poetry

104 pages, Paperback

Published September 1, 2000

About the author

Gilbert Sorrentino was one of the founders (1956, together with Hubert Selby Jr.) and the editor (1956-1960) of the literary magazine Neon, the editor for Kulchur (1961-1963), and an editor at Grove Press (1965-1970). Selby's Last Exit to Brooklyn (1964) and The Autobiography of Malcolm X are among his editorial projects. Later he took up positions at Sarah Lawrence College, Columbia University, the University of Scranton and the New School for Social Research in New York and then was a professor of English at Stanford University (1982-1999). The novelists Jeffrey Eugenides and Nicole Krauss were among his students, and his son, Christopher Sorrentino, is the author of the novels Sound on Sound and Trance.

Mulligan Stew is considered Sorrentino's masterpiece.

Obituary from The Guardian

Interview 2006

Reviews

[Geoff · Rating 4 out of 5]

Everything you've come to know and love about Gilbert Sorrentino is present in this collection of poems, all centered around the color orange- a memory, a word with no rhyme (so thus an implied absence), and what comes to be a central rhythm and axis. Apparently here Gil is playing with forms of the sonnet, deconstructing and reconstructing and generally bedeviling the form, but I suppose I don't know enough about the various incarnations the sonnet might take to catch this structural hinge every time. Extremely enjoyable poetry, sometimes downright funny and sometimes a little weepy, but always beating with that blood of real feeling. Sorrentino, if you don't know already, is the man. So... I happen to have a very distinct orange-centered event that recurs in my life, so I decided to write my own contribution to The Orangery. It does not imitate a sonnet form, and the rhyme necessarily breaks apart at the end. But it's about Christmas! So it is a topical poem, which of course I know you all enjoy:

After The Orangery

I was six months into matter
when my grandfather passed from his
pap was called that by family
a burning barn what did him in
fighting of it, orange and red flames
smoke roiling black and gray
maybe a hound dog’s bray
(it was the country, by the way
where neighbors are nurses,
firemen, bridge builders, buriers)
and clotted veins
under blue mountain’s foot
black drops of black soot
moat of heat encircles
a form in the grass does lie
mote of man ascends the sky
soul of man, mote of man flies
flames lick the slats
solid to liquid to gas...

winter light on limbs of fir
white light red light green light stir
with fireplace crackle and scent
typical Christmas morning spent
home, mom, dad, holy ghost,
each year,
my father gives me an orange
that was the gift his father gave to him
it means: poverty, sweetness, slated need
and memory,
pale globe with skin aflame
and layers with fingernails to peel away
(oranges don’t grow in Virginia)
and
nothing rhymes with orange

[Grace Ezra · Rating 4 out of 5]

Orange is totally artifact

[W.B. · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you love poetry and don't own this, you are seriously missing out. A very funny, very moving work. Every poem in the book contains the word "orange"...this would of course be gimmicky if the poet wasn't a skilled one, and if his poetry were not of interest. The poet is a natural, so no worries. A playful book that--once read--will stay with you always. Sorrentino is a delight, a real boon to AmPo.

[M.W.P.M. · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Orangery is notable for its repetition of "orange" (the word appears in every poem) and its recycling of various phrases... Often times, the last word, or last line, of a poem is the first word, or first line, of the following poem. In its repetition of "orange", The Orangery is reminiscent of Brautigan's Trout Fishing in America ; in its recycling of various phrases, it is reminiscent of Berrigan's Sonnets ...

The building had better days.
Immured in a situation "symbolized"
by orange.
I mean, it saw better days.

God only knows
what the rest of us saw. I know
what I saw. There was
certainly a roadhouse or two.

Off the highway orange drink
and cool Maria Elena. Afternoon
stilled in a smile
and a current pop tune.

I have decided this in the last minute.
It is as true as true.
- Chez Macadam, pg. 11

*

Who
was that who
saw
his father
in
his shorts,
mother laughing?

Who decided on
the
pattern?
Of
oranges?
On white.

Who was that?
Who
saw his father?
In his shorts!
Mother
laughing.
Who?

Who
decided?
On the
pattern of
oranges
on
white.
- Zukofsky, pg. 17

*

Locked away by choice this billionaire
who is no eccentric but has made his own
time. He supposes.

This curious regimen may be considered
weird, an odd artistic devotion that makes
nothing. Rises in black night.

A movie. Television. A quart if orange
juice. Three chocolate puddings. Another
movie. Phone calls.

Sleeps in the fierce daylight of dreams
of Ductin Hoffman and Faye Dunaway. A thin
slice of the moon shows. He rises.

Poaches eggs on white toast. Reads of
the contest winner who dreams of Kansas.
- Americana, pg. 36

*

Those who like oranges are nice people.
These terrible people like oranges
And are terrible people.

Oranges can help nobody.
A man with a cold eats oranges.
He is suddenly cured.

Nice people secretly hate oranges.
The President loves them.
The President's wife says he's nice.

Terrible people hate the President.
They go mad for oranges.
Some think them garbage.

All Protestants are afraid of oranges.
Joe is a Protestant President.
- To David Antin, pg. 52

*

Ladies and gentlemen
a compact cat
and over here
an orange
and over here
some more
ladies and gentlemen

a perfect sphere
a kind of gold
direct from Persia
and over here
its missing n
batted by the cat
ladies and gentlemen
- Interlude, pg. 62

*

A high blue sky clicks into place
soon after dawn. As usual millions
live and die beneath it.

Among them comics and comediennes
those who die for a laugh
but not for laughs. Enormous waste
seems to occur and reoccur.

As I grow older many of them persist
as ghosts encapsulate in persistent
scenes dreamy yet exact.

I see them all ugly smiles
or beloved smiles as they were
in snow in trolleys in new suits
as children eating orange ice.
- Vision of the City from a Window, pg. 77

[Paul Secor · Rating 5 out of 5]

Scholars or academics can write reviews of books of poetry. I'm neither of those, so all I can do is print a poem from The Orangery in the hope that someone may like it and read the entire book.

Simplicity

Once when we were younger
fifteen years ago I in tie
and jacket you in a black dress
we took the wrong train

and had to run in a cruel
sun flaming reddish orange
for the right train on
another platform sweating

with luggage and I had
a bag of pots and pans. You
seemed miles in front of me
and I ran clanging. Wait!

Now we know this
and no one else knows anything.


If this poem doesn't grab you, that's fine. Find another book of poems and read it. There are plenty of them out there.

[Tristan Wolf · Rating 1 out of 5]

I reviewed this book when it made its unfortunate first appearance during my undergraduate years at Sam Houston State University. I wrote the review for the Sam Houston Literary Review, and my opinion has not changed since then. Just because each page has 14 lines on it, that doesn't make them sonnets any more than my stepping into the NASA Space Museum makes me an astronaut. Worse yet, the "kilng-klang association" of alleged verses like "the moon? The moon... is that the moon?" (I'm paraphrasing, as I don't to spend money on the terrible waste of paper) illustrates a distinct tendency toward schizophrenia, which might explain why Sorrentino thought these to be good poems. Why others think so continues to remain a mystery to me even after nearly 40 years.