Last Blue: Poems [Paperback]

Gerald Stern (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 2001

"Stern's bebop poems shimmer and shadow-dance down the page."—Booklist

Following his National Book Award winner, This Time, Gerald Stern further explores history and memory, the casual miracles of relationships, and his irrevocable connection to the natural world. The weight of history and the bouyance of memory, the casual miracles of relationships, and his irrevocable connection to the natural world are some of Gerald Stern's ongoing themes in this new book. The poems in Last Blue range in tone from the joyously unrestrained to the quietly somber. A Stern poem can begin with the majestic cadences of an Old Testament psalm, turn on an almost invisible hinge, and bring into focus the smallest detail. Here is a radiant collection from an essential voice in American poetry.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Stern's 12th collection is his first since winning the 1998 National Book Award for the new and selected This Time. The poems still rely on Stern's inimitable blend of coiled anger, love of life and raffish, on-the-outside-looking-in wit. Poem after poem reflects on what it means to have been a Jew, a Pennslyvanian, a nature-and-weather watcher, a world traveler and, for a longer time than many poets of his stature, an unknown writer during the middle of the last century: "If you can stand Strauss then so can I,/ oh filthy Danube, oh filthy Delaware, oh filthy Allegheny.// And anyone who never opened a Murphy bed/ night after night for seven years without ripping/ the sheet and had neither desk nor dresser can't walk/ in my shoes or wear my crocodile t-shirt." Stern's remembrances are not so much nostalgias as attempts to telescope the speaker's world and worldview through verse-talking, to test everyday language's ability to render his experiences to his liking, or at least his satisfaction. The trick often works so well that readers won't notice that the language is far from ordinary, and that the poet's barrage of things are carefully chosen: "I had a Brown's Beach jacket with a reddish/ thorn in one of the pockets, which was my toothpick/ for thirty-five years, and a vest to match, and a flattened acorn I kept in the darkness; and I had a pencil// I used to keep my balance, the edges were eaten,/ the lead was gray, the green eraser was worn/ down to the metal, and I had a spiral notebook/ I kept for emotions, and I folded my money." While there are few surprises here, the quality of the poems is consistently quite high, and the voice behind them remains winning and companionable. (Apr.)
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Booklist

Stern's bebop poems shimmer and shadow-dance down the page. He is a rambler and a park bench meditator, writing with great energy about the spontaneous theater of city streets and the music of city rivers. Stern is fascinated by the daily transition from dark to light and back again, and loves to conjure colors, from the hues of the fruits he so often contemplates to the colors of old clothing, new leaves, and pavement. Birds are his totem animal, and they appear everywhere, even in dreams. Like his aviary companions, Stern's poetic persona likes to peck at things to get at their essence, and then to levitate out of the ordinary to take in the big picture and to feel the lift, the free-floating, singing bliss of life. He writes, too, of loneliness and shame, but his poems always cycle back to gratitude and grace. Stern's last book, This Time (1998), won the National Book Award; his new poems are prizes for us all. Donna Seaman --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 112 pages
• Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company (June 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0393321622
• ISBN-13: 978-0393321623
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.5 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 6.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,233,232 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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