Monolithos, Poems 1962 and 1982 is the second book of poetry by American poet Jack Gilbert. It was nominated for all three major American book awards: the National Book Critics Circle Award, the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry, and the American Book Award. The same year Monolithos was published, Gilbert's partner Michiko Nogami died of cancer.
Released by Alfred A. Knopf in a 1982 hardcover edition, Monolithos came twenty years after Views of Jeopardy, which won Gilbert the Yale Series of Younger Poets Competition in 1962.
A subsequent paperback edition of Monolithos was released by Graywolf Press in 1984. However, the limited availability of this edition has caused the book's value to climb from its original six-dollar publication price to amounts between $100 and $250, depending on the seller.
The book is divided into two sections: One - 1962 contains revised and collected poems from Views of Jeopardy, while Two [Monolithos] 1982 consists of new poems, written mainly on the Greek islands of Paros and Santorini. Gilbert stayed there with the poet Linda Gregg during their marriage.
Of the title, Gilbert writes in the foreword, "Monolithos means single stone, and refers to the small hill behind our house which gave the place we lived its name. It is the tip of a non-igneous stone island buried in debris when most of Thira blew apart 3,500 years ago."
The Abnormal Is Not CourageBetween PoemsPerspective He Would Mutter Going to BedAnd She WaitingDon Giovanni On His Way to HellThe Plundering of CirceIsland and FigsOn Growing Old In San FranciscoCounty MusicianI'll Try to Explain About the FearRainPoetry Is a Kind of LyingIt May Be No One Should Be OpenedNew York, SummerIn Dispraise of PoetrySusanna and the EldersFor ExampleThe Night Comes Every Day to My WindowThe Sirens AgainBefore Morning in PerugiaOrpheus in Greenwich VillageAlbaOstinato RigoreA Bird Sings to Establish FrontiersBartleby at the WallThe Whiteness, the Sound, and AlcibiadesAll the Way From There to HereNot Part of LiteratureTrying to Be MarriedRegistrationMore Than FriendsThat Tenor of Which the Night Birds Are a VehicleWalking Home Across the IslandMistrust of BronzeAngelusA Kind of WorldLeaving MonolithosDivorceRemembering My WifePewterNight After NightHungerSectsThey Call It Attempted SuicideMiniscusWho's ThereMeaning WellTemplateSiegeTranslation Into the OriginalBurning and Fathering: Accounts of My CountryThe Fashionable HeartBreakfastLosingThe Rainy Forests of Northern CaliforniaIl Mio TesoroDon Giovanni in TroubleThe MoviesByzantium BurningThey Will Put My Body Into the GroundLove PoemElephant Hunt in GuadalajaraPavaneLoyaltySongGetting ReadySur PonticelloThe Cucumbers of Praxilla of SicyonA Description of Happiness in KøbenhavnNew Hampshire MarbleMy Marriage With Mrs. JohnsonHeart SkiddingGamesMy Graveyard in TokyoAlone on Christmas Eve in JapanTexturesThe RevolutionMexicoAnother GrandfatherSinging in My Difficult MountainsThreshing the Fire
