"Stern reflects with wit, pathos, rage, and tenderness on eighty-five years of life, much of it spent engaged with literature and learning--as a major American poet, a longtime teacher at the University of Iowa Writers' Workshop, an insatiably broad reader, and a devoted friend to artists and writers"--Provided by publisher.
In what could be boldly called a new genre, Gerald Stern reflects with wit, pathos, rage, and tenderness, on 85 years of life. In 70 short, intermingling pieces that constitute a kind of diary of a mind, Stern moves nimbly between the past and the...
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In what could be boldly called a new genre, Gerald Stern reflects with wit, pathos, rage, and tenderness, on 85 years of life. In 70 short, intermingling pieces that constitute a kind of diary of a mind, Stern moves nimbly between the past and the present, the personal and the philosophical. Creating the immediacy of dailiness, he writes with entertaining engagement about what he's reading, be it Spinoza, Maimonides, John Cage, Etheridge Knight, James Schuyler, or Lucille Clifton, and then he seamlessly turns to memories of his student years in Europe on the GI Bill, or his political and socia
Contents; 1 Park Bench; 2 Dragonfly, Famous Deaths; 3 Chance Writing, Saints; 4 The Lamb; 5 Christ; 6 Diary of the Mind; 7 Dogs; 8 Tyler School of Art; 9 Rome and the Jews; 10 The Living Presence; 11 "Christians" in Haiti; 12 Education of the Poet; 13 Straddling; 14 My Mother and Father; 15 The Train Station; 16 Athletes; 17 Jack Gilbert; 18 Haiti, the Long History; 19 Exploitation; 20 The Comic; 21 Sports and Business; 22 Deicide; 23 War Work; 24 Learning Poetry, Living Cheap; 25 Dragonflies and Being; 26 Uncle Harry and the Robin; 27 Lucille's Death; 28 Four Crises; 29 Fifty More Pages
30 Alana Rose31 26 Vandam; 32 Signs over Gates; 33 Dragonflies; 34 My Big Mouth; 35 Trip to New York with Poet-Potter; 36 James Schuyler; 37 Dog Eat Dog; 38 Academy of Arts Medal; 39 Meister Eckhart; 40 Larry Levis, Caravaggio; 41 Angela Hazley's Death; 42 Playing Jacks; 43 New Zealand Broadsides; 44 Demystification; 45 Remorse, Gilgamesh; 46 Etheridge Knight; 47 Pruning Hooks; 48 Charlie I; 49 Israel; 50 Nut Death; 51 Anti-Semitic Cartoons; 52 Marie Ponsot; 53 Again Haiti; 54 Charlie and Elvira; 55 McChrystal; 56 Bob Bernat; 57 Montpellier; 58 The Steel Pier; 59 Charlie III; 60 Libby
61 Bialystock, 1906Ł62 Poland I; 63 Poland II; 64 Neighbors I; 65 Lev Going; 66 Lev Not There; 67 Neighbors II; 68 Neighbors III; 69 Neighbors IV; 70 Saltwater Pools; 71 Childhood in New York; 72 Henry James in New York; 73 Air-Conditioned Nightmare; 74 Henry Miller's New York; 75 Simone de Beauvoir's New York; 76 Atlantic City; 77 Turkish Restaurant in Paris; 78 Paul McCartney; 79 Yom Kippur Pear; 80 The Engineers' Club; 81 Betty Kray; 82 Hole in Forehead; 83 The Stages of Life; 84 Port Authority; Permissions; About the Author;
