Ernest Hilbert

Ernest Hilbert is an American poet, critic, and editor born in Philadelphia, PA in 1970. He is the editor of the [http://www.cprw.com Contemporary Poetry Review] and is known for his [http://webdelsol.com/CPR/Hilbert/editorial4.htm quarterly editorial views] on the world of poetry publishing. Hilbert also edits a popular blog/podcast/web TV show, [http://www.eversevideo.com/ E-Verse Radio.] He is also noted for the interviews he has conducted with poets and novelists.

Biography

Hilbert received a Master's Degree and a Doctorate in English Literature from St Catherine's College, Oxford. His doctoral dissertation was entitled "Dark Earth, Dark Heavens: British Apocalyptic Writing in the First World War and its Aftermath." While a student there, he founded the short-lived magazine "Oxford Quarterly" (1995-1997), [http://cprw.com/hilbert2.htm] which included among its advisory editors Iris Murdoch, Marjorie Perloff, and Seamus Heaney, and included contributors such as David Mamet, Charles Wright, Charles Simic, W.D. Snodgrass, Galway Kinnell, Caroline Kizer, Donald Justice, Philip Levine, John Hollander, Christopher Middleton, Andrew Motion (Poet Laureate of Britain), Michael Hamburger, Marilyn Hacker, Charles Tomlinson, Anthony Hecht, Adrienne Rich, Les Murray, Louise Gluck, Mark Strand, and Jorie Graham. After moving from Oxford to Manhattan, he worked as an editor for the punk and beatnik magazine "Long Shot" for one year before departing over creative differences. He then served as the poetry editor for Random House’s online magazine [http://www.randomhouse.com/boldtype/pastish.html "Bold Type"] for several years (2000-2004) and also edited the print and online magazine "nowCulture" (2000-2005).

In early 2003, he hosted an evening of readings at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York City, entitled "The Future Knows Everything: New American Writing," which featured the poets Rebecca Wolff and Geoffrey Nutter and the novelists Liz Brown and Suzanne Wise.

Hilbert is currently editing an anthology of essays on the work of Anthony Hecht, scheduled to be published by Story Line Press. Hilbert works as an antiquarian book dealer with the firm Bauman Rare Books, and lives in Philadelphia with his wife, an archaeologist at the University of Pennsylvania. Hilbert is a member of the Association of Literary Scholars and Critics, the Philobiblon Club, and the Franklin Inn Club.

Poetry

Hilbert's poetry has appeared in "The New Republic", "American Poet", "The New Criterion", "American Poetry Review", "Yale Review", "Boston Review", "LIT", "Georgetown Review", "Parnassus: Poetry in Review", "The London Magazine", "Poetry East", "McSweeney’s", "The American Scholar", [http://versemag.blogspot.com/ "Verse"] , "Volt", and [http://www.fencemag.com/v9n1/ "Fence"] . He writes literary criticism and book reviews for several publications, including "The New York Sun", [ [http://www.nysun.com/search/?submit=TRUE&searchtext=ernest+hilbert&submit=Search Search - The New York Sun ] ] [http://www.amazon.com/dp/0684313065/ Scribner’s American Writers] series, and the Academy of American Poets. [See the masthead of the "Contemporary Poetry Review", http://cprw.com/hilbert2.htm] In recent years he has composed in a unique sonnet form sardonically described by Daniel Nester as the “Hilbertian” sonnet. While retaining the 14 pentameter lines of the traditional English sonnet, it substitutes the rhyme scheme ABCABC DEFDEF GG, to create two sestets and a final couplet. Other poets have written in the form, including Amy Lemon, the Irish poet Justin Quinn, Bill Coyle, whose sonnet "Hindsight" appeared in "The New Criterion", and David Yezzi, whose sonnet "Varnishing Days" appeared in the "PN Review". [ [http://www.newcriterion.com/archives/26/04/hindsight/ Hindsight by Bill Coyle - The New Criterion ] ] Hilbert's sonnet "Prophetic Outlook," which appeared in "The American Poetry Review", [ [http://www.aprweb.org/issues/current/ APR July/Aug 2008 Vol. 37/No. 4 ] ] will be taught by Molly Peacock in her course "The 21st-Century Sonnet" at the New School in New York City this December. [ [http://www.mollypeacock.org/eventsarchive.html Molly Peacock Events Archive ] ]

His unpublished collection "Cathedral Building", which combines a wide variety of styles and poetic approaches, has been a finalist for the Colorado Prize for Poetry (under the title "Removal of the Body"), the Barrow Street Press Book Contest, the Yale Younger Poets Prize, and the Walt Whitman Award from the Academy of American Poets. It also received an honorable mention for the Dorset Prize. [ [https://www.tupelopress.org/prizwin06.shtml Tupelo Press - 2006 ] ]

Hilbert's first collection, "Sixty Sonnets", will be issued by Red Hen Press in the autumn of 2008. According to the publisher, "the collection is calculated to reflect the sixty minutes in an hour of heightened imaginative contemplation. It contains memories of violence, historical episodes, humorous reflections, quiet despair, violent discord, public outrage, and private nightmares. A cast of fugitive characters share their desperate lives—failed novelists, forgotten literary critics, puzzled historians, armed robbers, jobless alcoholics, exasperated girlfriends, high school dropouts, drowned children, and defeated boxers. These characters populate love poems ('My love, we know how species run extinct'), satires ('The way of the human variety, / Not even happy just being happy'), elegies ('The cold edge of the world closed on you, kissed / You shut'), and songs of sorrow ('Seasons start slowly. They end that way too'). The original rhyme scheme devised for this sequence—ABCABCDEFDEFGG—allows the author to dust off of the Italian 'little song' and Americanize the Elizabethan love poem for the twenty-first century. Speaking at times "in propria persona" ('We'll head out, you and me, have a pint'), in the voices of both male and female characters ('I'm sorry I left you that day at MoMA'), and across historical gulfs ('Caesar and Charlemagne, Curie, Capone'), "Sixty Sonnets" marshals both trivia and tragedy to tell stories of modern America, at last achieving a hard-won sense of careful optimism, observing 'the last, noble pull of old ways restored, / Valued and unwanted, admired and ignored.'"

Music

Hilbert has composed libretti for Daniel Felsenfeld for the following works:

*"Summer and All it Brings", solo cantata, chamber arrangement (score for soprano, spoken male voice, cello, and harpsichord); performed August 19, 20, 21, 2002, Bowery Poetry Club, New York City.
*"Fortune Does Not Hide" (aria) performed live on WNYC, public radio, April 24, 2004
*"The Last of Manhattan", five-act opera, The Kitchen, Chelsea NYC, nine singers and ensemble accompaniment, two consecutive shows, May 11, 2004, each followed by a panel featuring Hilbert and Felsenfeld, moderated by Mark Adamo. [ [http://thekitchen.org/04S_may.html > S P R I N G 2 0 0 4 ] ]
*"Summer and All it Brings", full orchestral arrangement, performed by the New York City Opera at Symphony Space in Manhattan, VOX: Showcasing American Composers, May 26, 2004
*"Of all those who held it would come," final section of The Bridge, song cycle for piano and soprano; performed at Grace Episcopal Church, May 18, 2003
* In April, 2008, Hilbert signed a deal to record with Philadelphia record label Pub Can Records in Widget Studios. The CD, produced by David Young, will include recordings of Hilbert and others reading from his book "Sixty Sonnets", backed by several musicians, including a drummer, bassist, and guitarist. [ [http://www.widgetstudios.com/?p=77 Widget Studios » Blog Archive » Ernest Hilbert | Sixty Sonnets ] ]

References

External links

* [http://www.playbillarts.com/features/article/4237.html An article by composer Daniel Felsenfeld, from Playbill ]
* [http://www.cortlandreview.com/issue/32/index.html Special issue of the "Cortland Review" guest-edited by Hilbert."]