Gilbert & Garbo in Love: A Romance in Poems
(The Word Works, 2003)
Christopher Conlon

Everyone who loves films is drawn to certain actors and actresses, the real people who create the fantasy. Sometimes one appearance is enough. Sometimes we see them in several interesting roles, then we’re hooked. We become fans.

For fans, an image on the screen is not enough. We want to know the person:
Who is that actor that performs so well?
Where did he come from?
What is he really like?

In reality, most fans can’t satisfy this curiosity firsthand. No problem. Early on, the ingenuity of the Hollywood moviemakers and popular press provided something even better—the fan magazines, such as Photoplay. And what they delivered! The fan magazines went beyond merely chronicling actors’ lives and activities. They wove fact and legend together to prove that our heroes were far more than mere mortals—just as we hoped!

The re-creative writing that helped to create larger-than-life film celebrities gave fans a magical play space that was just as magnificent as the palaces in which the early movies screened. A ticket to a movie bought a two-hour vacation, and the latest issue of Photoplay was our souvenir photo album. Like hand-tinted photos in old albums, each fan magazine feature provided artfully crafted stories about beautiful people, leaving fans to savor the possibility of an enhanced reality where people live dramatic lives that matter.

In this tradition, Christopher Conlon delivers John Gilbert fans a Photoplay Exclusive in his poetic treatment of Gilbert & Garbo in Love. His entertaining book is a special edition that weaves truth and fantasy into a Freudian circus of imagery and emotion.

Gilbert & Garbo in Love is a book for the fan to experience. The poems are not limited to biographical or historical facts, although there are many historical notes of interest. Instead, the poet places two legendary stars in an atmosphere that is engaging, dramatic, sometimes frightening, and ultimately tragic. While many scenes are depicted with careful detail, the atmosphere is not so much physical as emotional. Conlon takes film fans on the ultimate Hollywood tour. We travel inside the thoughts and passions of John Gilbert and Greta Garbo until we glimpse their souls.

Conlon writes poetry that is powerful yet accessible even to readers who have limited exposure to poetry. As such a reader, I will refrain from commenting on the art of either individual poems or the work as a whole. However, I did find that Conlon’s hard-hitting style creates a true page-turner of intense drama. Each poem moves quickly as if written from a stream-of-consciousness chronicling of events as they rush by, but the work, of course, is much more coherently structured.

This stream-of-consciousness style is essential to the presentation of John Gilbert and Greta Garbo from their internal perspectives. The author’s natural style takes us through their thoughts and emotions. Sometimes, the thoughts are very beautifully articulated, where the words flow into elegant constructions, such as in the imagery of love’s quiet moments presented by "Interlude":

Three o’clock in the afternoon. The faraway
Chopping sound of lawnmowers, the smell
Of grass mixed with orange blossoms and,
Somewhere, eucalyptus. Their faces
Almost touching, their bodies entwined,
The sheets like sod for their quiet rooting
And growth.

In other poems, the words are abrupt, primal, relating an intense feeling that can only articulate in truncated syllables, such as depictions of a key figure in Greta Garbo’s early career, the "Director" (presumably Mauritz Stiller). Garbo’s mentor and alleged first lover appears as an intense, self-centered man who controls others as a means of drawing light and energy to himself. We share her relief at his death when:

His eyes are shut. She’s free.
His hands are still. She’s free.
His voice is stopped. She’s free.

This poem also presents an example of a recurring theme that Conlon uses to present the key characteristics of our heroes. For Garbo, poems throughout the book remind us of the premium she placed on freedom and control of her life. For Gilbert, the poems relate his desire to make himself into a man who could be loved and valued. These are theme components that make fine bio sheets in Photoplay.

Gilbert & Garbo in Love presents an intimate perspective by working from the inside out. This interior viewpoint gives the fans exactly what we want. We have the chance to see John and Greta as they see themselves, each other, and the world. That rarified view touches on the reason why fans read the fan magazines and watch the "exclusive interviews." So many are waiting for the opening to crawl into that intimate space with our heroes that we are often denied in the far less important, mundane relationships of our everyday lives.

Any interior perspective must be subjective, so the issue of veracity doesn’t necessarily detract from the impact of poems such as "White Voice." Whether or not other dynamics wounded Gilbert’s career isn’t nearly as important as Gilbert’s perception of the injustice done to his stardom, public adulation, and thereby, to his personal validation.

The poet presents adult situations and language at points that underscore the humanity and intensity of the individuals’ feelings. The raw language that strikes out from "Pity" conveys the frustration that Gilbert felt as his sparkling world crumbled around him. Imagine how a man who owned the film world might feel when he abruptly becomes the object of "Pity" from the woman he had loved as intensely as his celebrity status.

Yet the most powerful and poignant image of John Gilbert appears in bookend pieces that involve neither his stardom nor Greta Garbo. Conlon uses internal imagery to present Gilbert’s perceptions of his own failings and his strongest longings. At the beginning, in "Small," Gilbert the child blames himself for growing too large to keep his mother’s love and therefore, for being rejected, abandoned, without a true home. Throughout the ascendancy of his career, Gilbert enjoys his growing fame that brings the adulation of the masses. He agonizes as he shrivels from the spotlight. Yet, in "Home," as he dies, Gilbert feels himself shrinking back to a size that finally allows him to be gathered by his mother to a safe place.

Gilbert & Garbo in Love presents a fascinating story that satisfies our need to have the story told our way. We experience the intimacy of knowing celebrities we can’t ever meet in a Technicolor drama drawn from the mixing bowl of fact and fantasy. In relating the story of two past superstars and what they achieved, Christopher Conlon also recounts what they lost and the price they paid. Even Photoplay couldn’t package John Gilbert and Greta Garbo any better.