What does it mean today to experience a work of art? In a culture of triviality and cynicism, at the mercy of the superfluous and ephemeral, where can we turn to find the genuine, the sincere, the truly accomplished?

The thirty essays in See What I See are the fruits of a lifetime spent grappling with these questions. By turns lyrical and arch, nostalgic and impassioned, they seek answers in the achievements of the masters as well as in less likely places. For Greg Gerke, aesthetic experience is found as often in the human body as in poetry or prose, as much in being in the world as on celluloid or canvas: in the yearnings, confusions, hopes, and pleasures of a life fully lived.