Born and raised in the Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania neighborhood of East Liberty, he attended Peabody High School before failing out. Gilbert then worked as a door-to-door salesman, an exterminator, and a steelworker. Due to a clerical error, he was admitted to the University of Pittsburgh and graduated in 1954. During these college years he and his classmate Gerald Stern developed a serious interest in poetry and writing. Later, he received his master\'s degree from San Francisco State University in 1963.\n', '

After college, Gilbert went to Paris and worked briefly at the Herald Tribune before moving to Italy. Gilbert spent several years there before moving to San Francisco and then to New York, where his life as a poet began.\n', '

His work has been distinguished by simple lyricism and straightforward clarity of tone, as well as a resonating control over his emotions: “We look up at the stars and they are / not there. We see memory / of when they were, once upon a time. / And that too is more than enough.” His first book of poetry, Views of Jeopardy, (1962) won the Yale Younger Poets Prize and was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize, and Gilbert was quickly recognized.\n', '

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