Gerald Stern

For five decades, Gerald Stern has been writing his own brand of expansive, deep-down American poetry. Now in his nineties, this "sometimes comic, sometimes tragic visionary" (Edward Hirsch) engages a lifetime of memories in his poems, blending philosophical, wide-ranging intellect with boisterous wit. Memory unites the poems in Blessed as We Were, which reach back through seven collections written over...

Divine Nothingness is a meditative reflection on the poet's past and an elegy to love and the experience of the senses in the face of mortality. From the Jersey side of the Delaware River in Lambertville, Gerald Stern explores questions about who and why we are, locating nothingness in the divine and the divine in nothingness. From "What Brings Me...

Galaxy Love spans countries and centuries, reflecting on memory, aging, history, and mortality. In wistful, generous, and lively love poems and elegies, National Book Award winner Gerald Stern captures the passage of time, the joys of a sensual life, and remembrances of the past.