Synopsis
A luminous new collection by the winner of the 1998 National Book Award for Poetry. Of these outstanding new poems, Gerald Stern says: "Light vs. darkness has always been one of my themes, but now more than ever. Not only is this the root--and metaphor--for all the major religions, but the almost biological frame of reference for humans. With me, it is overwhelming, personal."
Reviews
Stern's 12th collection is his first since winning the 1998 National Book Award for the new and selected This Time. The poems still rely on Stern's inimitable blend of coiled anger, love of life and raffish, on-the-outside-looking-in wit. Poem after poem reflects on what it means to have been a Jew, a Pennslyvanian, a nature-and-weather watcher, a world traveler and, for a longer time than many poets of his stature, an unknown writer during the middle of the last century: "If you can stand Strauss then so can I,/ oh filthy Danube, oh filthy Delaware, oh filthy Allegheny.// And anyone who never opened a Murphy bed/ night after night for seven years without ripping/ the sheet and had neither desk nor dresser can't walk/ in my shoes or wear my crocodile t-shirt." Stern's remembrances are not so much nostalgias as attempts to telescope the speaker's world and worldview through verse-talking, to test everyday language's ability to render his experiences to his liking, or at least his satisfaction. The trick often works so well that readers won't notice that the language is far from ordinary, and that the poet's barrage of things are carefully chosen: "I had a Brown's Beach jacket with a reddish/ thorn in one of the pockets, which was my toothpick/ for thirty-five years, and a vest to match, and a flattened acorn I kept in the darkness; and I had a pencil// I used to keep my balance, the edges were eaten,/ the lead was gray, the green eraser was worn/ down to the metal, and I had a spiral notebook/ I kept for emotions, and I folded my money." While there are few surprises here, the quality of the poems is consistently quite high, and the voice behind them remains winning and companionable. (Apr.)
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Stern's bebop poems shimmer and shadow-dance down the page. He is a rambler and a park bench meditator, writing with great energy about the spontaneous theater of city streets and the music of city rivers. Stern is fascinated by the daily transition from dark to light and back again, and loves to conjure colors, from the hues of the fruits he so often contemplates to the colors of old clothing, new leaves, and pavement. Birds are his totem animal, and they appear everywhere, even in dreams. Like his aviary companions, Stern's poetic persona likes to peck at things to get at their essence, and then to levitate out of the ordinary to take in the big picture and to feel the lift, the free-floating, singing bliss of life. He writes, too, of loneliness and shame, but his poems always cycle back to gratitude and grace. Stern's last book, This Time (1998), won the National Book Award; his new poems are prizes for us all. Donna Seaman
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