If you don't have a bed, or a dresser or a wall, or a book or a toy you are oppressed. An African American in a white world. A Jew in a Christian world. A gypsy. A Native American. A… — Gerald Stern Copy Share Image
“I am going to carry my bed into New York City tonight complete with dangling sheets and ripped blankets; I am going to push… — Gerald Stern Copy Share Image
I've been trying to come to terms with what I am and what I do and what I believe in. And I see that I'm not happy with - well, it's almost as if being a poet is not enough for me. It's too late for me to do more now. I did what I could in a small way.… — Gerald Stern Copy Share
“I think it's in Malone Dies that Beckett's creature is in a kind of prison or hospital. As I recall, he is visited twice a day, slop brought in and slop taken out. He has a stub of a pencil, a bit of paper. And he asks questions, ten, sven, I don't remember, "Why am I here?" "What day is… — Gerald Stern Copy Share
I've changed over my writing life. If I can generalize, I would say that the more recent poems - believe it or not -… — Gerald Stern Copy Share Image
There are hundreds of prisons - sexual, political, cultural. But being a prisoner also gives you impetus. — Gerald Stern Copy Share Image
I've spent hundreds of hours working over words, and part of me, a large part of me, has a desire to do something else. — Gerald Stern Copy Share Image
In America it's a particular problem. The artist, particularly the poet, is just unacknowledged; if I can use that dumb word. Maybe it has… — Gerald Stern Copy Share Image
I will look at the footprints going in and out of the water and dream up a small blue good to talk to. — Gerald Stern Copy Share Image
It's a kind of liberation to break free in language, if you can break free, but it's also a confinement, because form confines you… — Gerald Stern Copy Share Image
I feel that my job, as an artist, is to disturb the peace. And to disturb it intellectually, linguistically, politically and literally. — Gerald Stern Copy Share Image
Oppressed cultures often envy those which are not, or oppressed individuals do, and sometimes those which - and who - are not envy those… — Gerald Stern Copy Share Image
