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.

Living on a Guggenheim Fellowship,[2] he was invited to tour 15 countries as a lecturer on American Literature for the U.S. State Department.

The Pulitzer jury's citation read: a half century of poems reflecting a creative author’s commitment to living fully and honestly and to producing straightforward work that illuminates everyday experience with startling clarity.

Gilbert was a close friend of the poet Linda Gregg, whom he met when she was nineteen and his student in San Francisco, and with whom he was in a relationship for six years.

"[2][7] He was also in a significant long-term relationship with the poet Laura Ulewicz during the late fifties and early sixties in San Francisco.

[8] Gilbert also was in a relationship with Michiko Nogami,[9] another former student and a Japanese language instructor 21 years his junior, about whom he wrote many of his poems.

Gilbert wrote two erotic novels with Jean Maclean which were published by the short-lived Danish Olympia Press under the pseudonym Tor Kung:[13] /* Anthology */ "19 New American Poets of the Golden Gate": editor.