Gerald Stern and The One Thing in Life

A month ago, I learned about the death at age 97 of poet Gerald Stern. I knew only a handful of his poems: “The Dancing,” “Waving Goodbye,” and “Stepping Out of Poetry,” but I loved those poems. They got me in the stomach, punched me with their emotion. And hearing of his passing, I knew that I needed to read more of his work. These last few weeks that is what I have been doing.

I read again “Stepping Out of Poetry” in which he reminisces about getting on “the old yellow streetcar” and going to the public library, the joy he found there: “What would you give,” he asks, “for your dream/  to be as clean and simple as it was then/ in the dark afternoons, at the old scarred tables?”

I found and read “Waving Goodbye,” about sending his daughter off to the next stage of her life, experiencing her loss “as an animal would, pressing my forehead against her/ walking in circles, moaning, touching her cheek…”

Then there is “The One Thing in Life,” a poem he considered as one which best described him and his life in poetry. Here are the last five lines:

There is a sweetness buried in my mind;
there is water with a small cave behind it;
there’s a mouth speaking Greek.
It is what I keep to myself; what I return to;
the one thing that no one else wanted.

How lucky he was to recognize that buried sweetness, to explore that small cave. How lucky for us to be able to read his poetry. And wonder about the wonderful one thing in life which exists for each of us.  –Lucy Adkins

Writing Exercise:

1. Read “Waving Goodbye” and “Stepping Out of Poetry”
2. Think about some people or ways of life you have said goodbye to. Jot down a few.
3. Think about some fond remembrances of the past and list some of these.
4. Write, beginning with the phrase “What would I give……..” Go on from there and see what happens.

For more inspiration, check out our website www.thewritingandcreativelife.com.Or follow this link to purchase our latest book, The Fire Inside.