A short life of the author
Gerald Stern (1925–2022) was an American poet born in Pittsburgh to Jewish immigrant parents. He published his first significant collection, Lucky Life, in 1977 — at age fifty-two — and went on to produce more than twenty collections over the next four decades. His late start only intensified his sense of urgency: Stern’s poems are garrulous, tender, rage-filled, and celebratory, often within a single stanza.
He won the National Book Award for This Time: New and Selected Poems (1998) and received the Wallace Stevens Award from the Academy of American Poets for lifetime achievement. His poems draw on Whitman’s long-breathed line, the Jewish liturgical tradition, and a deep engagement with European poetry (he lived in Paris and travelled widely in his youth).
Key Collections
Lucky Life (1977), Paradise Poems (1984), Leaving Another Kingdom: Selected Poems (1990), This Time (1998), Everything Is Burning (2005), In Beauty Bright (2012).
Collecting Stern
Lucky Life (1977, Houghton Mifflin) first editions are scarce and bring $50–$150. Later collections published by W.W. Norton are more accessible. Stern was a generous signer at readings throughout his long career.