This Lamont Prize-winning book offers all the joy, sadness, humor, beauty, and song that typically characterizes the work of the well-respected but unfortunately lesser-known American poet Gerald Stern. Stern, who has been writing since the 1960s, made a name for himself in 1977 with the publication of Lucky Life, now his most renowned collection. In Lucky Life Stern takes the reader on a journey, pausing everywhere from the streets of New York to post-Holocaust Germany to the soil of a lobelia plant. In an intimate and mature voice, he shares with us the lineage of his ancestors; his personal relationships; and bits of art, music, history--even the neighbors he chats with on the beach. His style is Whitmanesque, urging us to "listen a little for the spongy world" after it has rained, and reminding us how to "understand the power of maples." Reading Stern's poetry is like listening to the words of a loving grandparent who has been through his or her share of painful experiences but has come to terms with them through wisdom gained from a long life. Stern offers several reasons for surviving in this often senseless world, but one of the most outstanding is found in the title poem: "Lucky you can be purified over and over again. / Lucky there is the same cleanliness for everyone."

“Stern’s unadorned craftsmanship has few rivals in American letters.”— Philadelphia Inquirer Early Collected Poems gathers the poems from the first six books of Gerald Stern’s body of work. A master poet, Stern has sought new language for the overlooked, neglected, and unseen facets of human experience. Whether writing about modern poets, Hebrew prophets, death, war, or love, “Stern’s literary songs are sharp, surprising, and unerring in their delivery” ( Ploughshares , Editor’s Choice). from “The Red Coal” The coal has taken over, the red coal is burning between us and we are at its mercy— as if a power is finally dominating the two of us; as if we’re huddled up watching the black smoke and the ashes; as if knowledge is what we needed and now we have that knowledge. Now we have that knowledge.

"The poems in this substantial volume, the majority of which are no longer available in other editions, have been selected from seven previous collections (1971-95)." "Among favorite poems redeemed, readers will rejoice to find "Lucky Life." Stern also offers a generous array of new poems under such titles as "Self-Portrait in His Sixties," "The Sounds of Wagner," and "Both of Them Were Sixty-Five," a poem about a meeting between the author's mother and Aaron Copland. There are moving tributes to Larry Levis, "Eggshell," and Allen Ginsberg, "Lilacs for Ginsberg." Throughout, Stern circles and addresses the themes that have always engaged him: love, hope, memory, and faith." --Book Jacket.