Gerald Stern 
In Beauty Bright: Poems [EPUB ebook] 

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

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?

Circa l’autore

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.