April 9, 2001 Gerald Stern to Read His Poems at the Library of Congress

On Thursday, April 19, Gerald Stern will read his poems at the Library of Congress. The program, presented under the auspices of the Gertrude Clarke Whittall Poetry and Literature Fund, will be at 6:45 p.m. in the Montpelier Room on the 6th floor of the James Madison Memorial Building, 101 Independence Ave. S.E. Tickets are not required.

Gerald Stern was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, in 1925, the son of Polish and Ukrainian immigrant parents. He earned degrees from the University of Pittsburgh and Columbia University and spent his 20s living in and traveling between New York City and Europe, principally in France and Italy. He wrote and published poetry in his early 20s but only began to publish extensively in his middle and late 40s. He has taught at many universities, including Temple University, New York University, and, for 14 years, at the University of Iowa Writers' Workshop, before retiring in 1995.

His books of poetry include Last Blue: Poems (2000); This Time: New and Selected Poems (1998), which won the National Book Award; Odd Mercy (1995); Bread Without Sugar (1992), winner of the Paterson Poetry Prize; Leaving Another Kingdom: Selected Poems (1990); Two Long Poems (1990); Lovesick (1987); Paradise Poems (1984); The Red Coal (1981), which received the Melville Caine Award from the Poetry Society of America; Lucky Life, the 1977 Lamont Poetry Selection of the Academy of American Poets, which was nominated for a National Book Critics Circle Award; and Rejoicings (1973). His other honors include the Paris Review's Bernard F. Conners Award, the Bess Hokin Award, the Ruth Lilly Prize, four National Endowment for the Arts grants, the Pennsylvania Governor's Award for Excellence in the Arts, the Jerome J. Shestack Poetry Prize from American Poetry Review, and fellowships from the Academy of American Poets, the Guggenheim Foundation, and the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts.

For many years a teacher at the University of Iowa Writers' Workshop, he lives in Lambertville, New Jersey and in New York City.