Gerald Stern

“I am going to carry my bed into New York City tonight complete with dangling sheets and ripped blankets; I am going…

— Gerald Stern

I've been trying to come to terms with what I am and what I do and what I believe in. And I…

— Gerald Stern

“I think it's in Malone Dies that Beckett's creature is in a kind of prison or hospital. As I recall, he is…

— Gerald Stern

Men aren't called pricks, but women are called cunts.

— Gerald Stern

I've changed over my writing life. If I can generalize, I would say that the more recent poems - believe it or…

— Gerald Stern

There are hundreds of prisons - sexual, political, cultural. But being a prisoner also gives you impetus.

— Gerald Stern

I've spent hundreds of hours working over words, and part of me, a large part of me, has a desire to do…

— Gerald Stern

In America it's a particular problem. The artist, particularly the poet, is just unacknowledged; if I can use that dumb word. Maybe…

— Gerald Stern

I will look at the footprints going in and out of the water and dream up a small blue good to talk…

— Gerald Stern

It's a kind of liberation to break free in language, if you can break free, but it's also a confinement, because form…

— Gerald Stern

I feel that my job, as an artist, is to disturb the peace. And to disturb it intellectually, linguistically, politically and literally.

— Gerald Stern

Oppressed cultures often envy those which are not, or oppressed individuals do, and sometimes those which - and who - are not…

— Gerald Stern

The act of writing itself isn't outrageous. And the institution subtly and insidiously works on you in such a way that though…

— Gerald Stern

“lucky life isn't one long string of horrors.”

— gerald stern

The cave is a dark, shadowy place. It's a place that's very close and yet distant at the same time, and it's…

— Gerald Stern

You could be attached to merely a description of a plant or a flower. Or a narrative of an event. Or rage…

— Gerald Stern

Maybe being an artist is a kind of detachment. You're in the cave, you're isolated, you're apart from everything and it's there…

— Gerald Stern

If you don't have a bed, or a dresser or a wall, or a book or a toy you are oppressed. An…

— Gerald Stern

The artist looks for a subject. You know, a lot of new poets don't seem to have a subject. I don't totally…

— Gerald Stern

Sometimes a person thinks he's attached to one thing and he's really attached to something else.

— Gerald Stern

I was ruined before I got started. I say ruined, but I could say blessed; I was too far gone to believe…

— Gerald Stern

Oppressed persons, oppressed cultures, tend to be more political, obviously, as are those with a rage for justice, or the crazy messianic…

— Gerald Stern

Bruce Smith is a tender master of music, and beautiful lines, and complex thoughts, and fascinating wild personal and cultural references.

— Gerald Stern

Teaching poetry, teaching as such, is worthy - if back breaking.

— Gerald Stern

Tolstoy is one of the greatest artists in history, but he finally became infused with the idea of the uselessness of art.…

— Gerald Stern