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Mike Schneider: Gerald Stern (1925-2022)
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He won’t be writing any new ones, but Gerald Stern long ago won a place in the hearts of poetry lovers, maybe especially in Pittsburgh. If there were a competition to choose the most iconic Pittsburgh poem, one to enshrine at City Hall, it would be hard not to pick Stern’s “The Dancing,” published in his collection Paradise Lost (1984).
The Dancing In all these rotten shops, in all this broken furniture and wrinkled ties and baseball trophies and coffee pots I have never seen a post-war Philco with the automatic eye nor heard Ravel's "Bolero" the way I did in 1945 in that tiny living room on Beechwood Boulevard, nor danced as I did then, my knives all flashing, my hair all streaming, my mother red with laughter, my father cupping his left hand under his armpit, doing the dance of old Ukraine, the sound of his skin half drum, half fart, the world at last a meadow, the three of us whirling and singing, the three of us screaming and falling, as if we were dying, as if we could never stop — in 1945 — in Pittsburgh, beautiful filthy Pittsburgh, home of the evil Mellons, 5,000 miles away from the other dancing—in Poland and Germany— oh God of mercy, oh wild God.
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Drawing a word-picture of mid-twentieth century Jewish-American life and, most evocatively, his father, a first-generation immigrant, Stern shows him “doing the dance/ of old Ukraine, the sound of his skin half drum,/ half fart.” How many poems say “fart”? — small hooray for that alone.
“The Dancing” goes on to register the pain of mid-20th-century history (capital “H”) — economic depression in America, the holocaust in Europe — in an amazing swoop of language:
in Pittsburgh, beautiful filthy Pittsburgh, home of the evil Mellons, 5,000 miles away from the other dancing — in Poland and Germany — oh God of mercy, oh wild God.
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A National Book Award winner (1998), along with many other honors for over 20 published collections, Stern was a vital force in American poetry for the past 40 years. His return to the city that launched him — in September 2014 (for City of Asylum Pittsburgh’s 10th Annual Jazz Poetry Concert) — was a cultural highlight for many.
In a flashy white-straw hat, leaning on his bright red metal cane, step-by-step silently making his way to a seat at the podium, Stern commanded the audience without a word. Born in the Hill District, raised as a working-class kid in Squirrel Hill, a walk-on running back for the University of Pittsburgh football team, who sparred with Billy Conn, Stern has few contenders — probably only his friend Jack Gilbert (1925-2012) — as the best poet Pittsburgh has produced.
Introduced by Garrison Keillor, Gerald Stern reads “The Dancing” live, online here:
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Mike Schneider’s poetry collection Spring Mills is forthcoming in 2023.
Vox Populi 
Mike,
I saw/heard Gerald Stern read to a small poetry class I was auditing in 1986 in Mankato, MN. He read back then with fire and conviction. The poem he shared that day, which most remains with me, was “Lucky Life”. Oh lucky lucky life. (It was “an amazing swoop of language”). He was hatless in that little room. The class of Midwestern wannabe poets sat mesmerized.
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Thanks for this memory, Jim.
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Jim & Mike,
I was at that reading in Mankato, MN too! In fact, I was one of the organizers, along with Kathy Callaway, our poetry instructor. Stern had been a teacher of hers years before. I asked him to read “I Remember Galileo” from THE RED COAL and he seemed surprised, “Why that one?” And I said, “The squirrel. I too need that squirrel.” He chuckled, and when he read it, that little room expanded to an arena. His voice carried us all on horseback. I don’t know that I’ve ever been that moved at a poetry reading. An extraordinary man, he will be/is already missed. Thank you for the memory, Jim.
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Hi, Janine
I forgot that poem, but just read it again. Relevant and lovely and sad too, in our time of such grief surrounding other animals. The squirrel could be any of us, who travel with him in “rushing up his green ungoverned hillside.” Though there was more to the poem than only ecopoetry, it foreshadowed that poetic direction.
Peace to you
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My favorite poem of his too. My favorite poet. My favorite mentor, teacher, guide. We loved him fiercely. His work invited that. So very sorry to hear that he’s gone. Kathy
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