Welcome to all the pleasures by Ernest Hilbert

Poems

October 2009

Welcome to all the pleasures

by Ernest Hilbert

Burke

was right!

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New Criterion

My grandfather—German
With shoulders of granite,

Of beer and blue skies,
Blast furnaces—grew impatient

When he learned that, at four,
I still had not learned to swim.

He hoisted me in summer air,
Spun me out over

The sluggish murk and let go.
I swore the river had no bottom.

The wind was wasp and pollen,
Charred pork and dragonfly.

I smacked the sun-fierce surface
With a sharp cold crash,

Then silence and stunned slowness.
I finned and swung,

Hung between what glows above
And what pulls below.

Ernest Hilbert's latest collection of poetry is Sixty Sonnets (Red Hen Press).

Webcasts

Anthony Daniels on the Euro Crisis
The New Criterion author Anthony Daniels delivers remarks in New York City about the "European experiment." With an introduction by editor Roger Kimball. Recorded on November 30, 2011.

Andrew C. McCarthy: The Muslim Threat
The New Criterion contributor Andrew C. McCarthy delivers remarks in Effingham, Illinois, about the threat of Islamism to the United States. A Friend of The New Criterion, Dwight Erskine, introduces McCarthy to the Effingham audience. Recorded on October 1, 2011.

Roger Kimball: The Grim Future of Statism
The New Criterion editor Roger Kimball delivers remarks in Effingham, Illinois, about the future of statism and The New Criterion's 30th anniversary. A Friend of The New Criterion, Dwight Erskine, introduces Roger Kimball to the Effingham audience. Recorded on October 1, 2011.

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