Synopses & Reviews
In , Gerald Stern gives us a stunning collection of his intimately personal--yet always universal, and always surprising--poems, rich with humor and insight. Shorter lyric poems in the first two parts continue the satirical and often redemptive vision of his last collection, , while never failing to carve out new emotional territory. In the third part, a long poem called "The Preacher," Stern takes the book of Ecclesiastes as a starting point for a meditation on loss, futility, and emptiness, represented here by the concept of a "hole" that resurfaces throughout.
Review
"Stern writes with a gruff, seen-it-all knowingness and with the distillation, leaps, and pivots acquired over a long life of poetic practice." Booklist
Review
"With a deft though sometimes mischievous hand, [Stern] crafts scenes that are at once exotic and familiar." Library Journal
Review
[Stern’s] strongest, strangest poems. --Publishers Weekly
Review
"[Stern's] strongest, strangest poems." Publishers Weekly
Synopsis
The fifteenth collection by a celebrated poet whose "terrific, boisterous energy has never flagged" (Megan Harlan, ).
About the Author
Gerald Stern is the author of the National Book Award-winning This Time, the Rebekah Johnson Bobbitt National Prize-winning Early Selected Poems, and other books. He has also been awarded the Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize, the National Jewish Book Award, and the Wallace Stevens Award, among many other honors. He lives in Lambertville, New Jersey.