Summary
Things were more welcoming in Squirrel Hill, where the Sterns, like many Jewish families, moved in the 1930s. But [GERALD STERN] says he was "half a loner" who spent more time at pool halls than he did studying. And while he had begun writing poetry, that only made him feel more isolated: "I was weird," he recalls realizing. "And I became secretive, subversive."
In what's billed by host Autumn House Press as a "homecoming" fund-raiser, on Sat., Oct. 15, Stern will read at the Hill House; Stern says he'll read largely from his Autumn House-published 2004 book of "aphorisms," Not God After All. He'll be joined by Tennessee-based poet Richard Jackson and local poets Terrance Hayes and Romella D. Kitchens (who'll perform with live music by The Cap Gun Quartet). On Sun., Oct. 16, he'll read at Joseph-Beth Booksellers with Pittsburgh's Jan Beatty, concentrating on his new collection, Everything Is Burning (W.W. Norton), which he calls "kind of angry and focused, reflecting the war and the stupidity going on now."See the full content of this document
Extract
Going Home Again
GERALD STERN SAYS that the reason Pittsburgh keeps turning up in his poetry might be "sentimental." Not that he doesn't have plenty of other excuses: The Hill District native...
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