Synopses & Reviews
Review
"Our romance with children begins with their idealism, their playfulness, their unfiltered imaginations and infinite capacity for wonder. We bear witness to their raucous, devilish clowning with the taboo and their instantaneous mood changes: one moment infantile, the next wise beyond their years. But the boyish wonder whoand#151;with surprising facilityand#151;sketched these cartoons, doodles, marginalia, visual and verbal puns, is in his eighties, one of our greatest and most prolific poets. Now we don't have to imagine what our favorite satyr does while he eats dinner, listens to you read, or waits for the bus. You can't take a pen out of this poet's hands and we're glad."and#151;Ira Sadoff
Synopsis
For decades one of our most honored and beloved poets, Gerald Stern is also, it turns out, a prolific doodler. Sometimes charming, sometimes scathing, sometimes both, the odd little figures and scenes here are reproduced from drawings on napkins, hotel stationary, and the margins of what seem to be lecture handouts. These are remarkable expressions of a quirky world and a clear vision.
About the Author
Gerald Sternand#8217;s recent books of poetry are
Early Collected Poems: 1965and#150;1992;
Save the Last Dance;
This Time: New and Selected Poems, which won the National Book Award;
Odd Mercy; and
Bread without Sugar. His collection of essays
What I Can't Bear Losing was published in 2009. His honors include the Award of Merit Medal from the American Academy of Arts and Letters,
The Paris Reviewand#8217;s Bernard F. Conners Prize, the Bess Hokin Prize from
Poetry, the Ruth Lilly Prize, four National Endowment for the Arts grants, the Pennsylvania Governorand#8217;s Award for Excellence in the Arts, the Jerome J. Shestack Poetry Prize from
The American Poetry Review, and fellowships from the Academy of American Poets, the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, and the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts. In 2005 Stern was selected to receive the Wallace Stevens Award for mastery in the art of poetry. For many years a teacher at the University of Iowa Writersand#8217; Workshop, Stern now lives in Lambertville, New Jersey.