The Temple Gate Called Beautiful

by David Kirby

Overview

David Kirby’s hilarious, poignant ninth collection of poetry opens with Elvis as Virgil guiding us through the afterlife, imagines where the dead go when they die, what they wear when they get there, and whether Heaven or Hell throws a better party.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781882295678
Publisher:	Alice James Books
Publication date:	04/01/2008
Pages:	96
Product dimensions:	5.60(w) x 8.50(h) x 0.40(d)

About the Author

David Kirby is the author of nine previous poetry collections, most recently The House on Boulevard St.: New and Selected Poems, as well as a book of essays. Kirby’s work appears regularly in the Best American Poetry and Pushcart Prize anthologies. Married to the poet Barbara Hamby, he lives in Tallahassee and teaches at Florida State University.

Read an Excerpt

From “Hello, I Must Be Going”:

. . . when it was time for her to go, she didn’t grumble;
she just left. And I, who shared her indifference
to any hope for an afterlife yet feared I might start shouting
for a confessor when my own time comes, I said to myself,
yes, that’s it, that’s what you do. I said to myself,
this is the real knowledge: that there’s no knowledge.

Editorial Reviews

It's been said that to write in a particular way argues for a certain version of reality. Kirby (The House on Boulevard St. ) has for years given us a rarified world, one rendered through the eyes of a keen intelligence. In these poems, we traipse through a postapocalyptic world with Elvis as our guide, or question the dead in all the ways we should have when they lived. Kirby's latest book holds steady with the same dry wit and fantastic themes that characterize his earlier works. At its best, this collectionis possessed of sharp description and a wry eye. But at other times, it risks tipping into a wistfulness that the text cannot support, one that seems perilously close to self-pity. It is common to speak of a writer's consistency when discussing his mature work, and Kirby gives us exactly what he always has: his best and his worst, all under one cover. A fine supplement for most academic and large public library poetry collections.-Chris Pusateri, Jefferson Cty. P.L., Lakewood, CO

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