Celia Gilbert

An Ark of Sorts (Jane Kenyon Chapbook Award Series) Celia Gilbert

Celia Gilbert's An Ark of Sorts chronicles a mother's days of grief following the death of a child. The poems fathom her inner dialogue as she tries both to comfort her family and to escape from the reality of tragedy: "I go round the grindstone reducing grain/ to something that could be bread." In the end, Gilbert shows us how the spirit turns back from despair to the light and how each of us struggles to accomplish "...the human work/ of being greater than ourselves."