Blessed as We Were: Late Selected and New Poems, 2000-2018 (e-book) (used book) | bookbook.eu

Description

“A sometimes comic, sometimes tragic visionary” (Edward Hirsch), Gerald Stern is an essential and unwavering presence in American poetry. Blessed as We Were distills the poet’s characteristic bardic voice through the persistent presence of memory, whether buoyant or weighty, explored from Last Blue (2002) through Galaxy Love (2017).


In a selection from these seven acclaimed volumes, along with new poems that combine the metaphysical with the domestic, Stern reminds us why he is “one of those rare poetic souls who makes it almost impossible to remember what our world was like before his poetry came to exalt it” (C. K. Williams).


 


From “Knucklebones”


and here’s to Charlemagne and here’s to Trotsky

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

and the little man on the wedding cake

and the cake itself and

stuffing your mouth with sugar,

and here’s to arthritic fingers and here’s to knucklebones.