In Beauty Bright - Poems

The lyric poems of In Beauty Bright, although marked by the same passion and swiftness as Gerald Stern's previous work, move into an area of knowledge-even wisdom-that reflects a long life of writing, teaching, and activism. They are poems of grief and anger, but the music is delicate and moving.

from "In Beauty Bright":

In beauty-bright and such it was like Blake's

lily and though an angel he looked absurd

dragging a lily out of a beauty-bright store

wrapped in tissue with a petal drooping,

nor was it useless-you who know it know

how useful it is-and how he would be dead

in a minute if he were to lose it though

how do you lose a lily?

About the author

Gerald Stern (1925—2022), the author of nineteen volumes of poetry, was awarded the National Book Award, the Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize, the National Jewish Book Award, and the Wallace Stevens Award, among many other honors.

Summary

“The work of an American master.”—World Literature Today

Product details

• Authors: Gerald Stern, Stern Gerald
• Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
• Languages: English
• Product format: Paperback / Softback
• Released: 09.05.2014
• EAN: 9780393348941
• ISBN: 978-0-393-34894-1
• No. of pages: 128
• Dimensions: 140 mm x 211 mm x 10 mm
• Weight: 107 g
• Subjects: Fiction > Poetry, drama; POETRY / General, Poetry by individual poets, Poetry / poems by individual poets