Here is a video that gives you a sense of who he is.
Here are two key poems that show him at his best...use the arrows at the top to go to the next page.
Please read and then make some kind of comment in which you demonstrate that you can think about the poem analytically....what do you see in the poem that you might NOT have picked up on a few weeks ago...show off your new skills.
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ReplyDeleteI removed this comment because I felt it was lacking in content and needed revision
DeleteIn “Potpourri” Stern is thinking about his wife who has died. His wife loved gardening, and he is focusing on all of the things in the house that have been neglected since she died. The potpourri is waiting for fresh petals and the flowers in the tin pitcher need to be changed. Even a great philosopher or famous artist can’t help his sadness.
ReplyDeleteIn “Magritte Dancing” Stern is an old man who is unhappy with his life. He seems to want to live, but he has sleepless nights and spends his day thinking about being in other places. I think of him as wanting to have a normal life, but by nature he is just different than other people.
The poem "Potpourri" has a motif of nature running throughout the poem. For example, "I see my wife struggling in the first with her roses and here iris..." Another example that complements the motif of nature is, "Across the room a potpourri waits" A potpourri is a mixture of flowers that adds a nature scent to a room. Near the end of the poem the wife is dead due what Gerald Stern is saying. For example, "...tonight I will sit there alone listening to trucks..." Most Importantly Gerald mentioned, "I will see if the thorn tree is still living..." Since the wife was a gardner, the husband shouldn't have a need to see what is alive or dead in their yard.
ReplyDeleteThe poem "Magritte Dancing" shows Gerald Stern having trouble sleeping at night, and longing for a better life. For example, he imagines him self living in Crete, pre-war Poland, and outer Zimbabwe. He also wishes he was more like other people due to him describing his neighbor in the poem as, "...his eyes already happy from his first soothing beer."
The poem potpourri describes how nature and life are similar. It shows how simple life really is. Mr. Stern also is alone. His wife had actually divorced him back in 1952. When he says,"I will sit there alone" and,"I will see if the thorn tree is still living" show that he is alone and without anyone. However, this poem doesn't say if his kids still visit him or not.
ReplyDeleteThe poem "Magritte Dancing shows that he is having problems speaking. He imagines himself different places and is completely out of it. He shows a few of his often used motifs Nature, History, and Art.
"Potpourri"
ReplyDeleteIn "Potpourri", our young minds are thrust into fast forward many years in the future, and we can feel the sadness of losing a wife. In this poem, Stern is able to capture all of the emotion, and lack thereof, of losing a partner, and the end of a relationship closer than any other on earth. Stern is able to add more depth to this devastating experience by using words like "alone", "thorn", and "darkness", all words describing the loss of a wife. "Potpourri" is able to show us the grief following the loss of a close friend, and is a very sobering reminder that all life must come to an end.
"Magritte Dancing"
Most have experienced what Stern is speaking about in this poem: wandering thoughts at night. In this poem, Stern seems to be a bit rattled and not able to think clearly. It is almost as if he is half-asleep and has one foot in reality and the other one in dreams.
Potpourri is an insight into Gerald Sterns life by which he describes losing his wife and not being able to stop thinking about her. He talks about hearing trucks going by all night and how he rests next to his wifes coffin in his house. Gerald has had a very hard life in which he has a metaphor of rising and falling, emotionally. He leaves the concentration camps and then later he loses his wife. His happiness is like a roller coaster to me.
ReplyDeleteMagritte Dancing is a poem in which his life has not died yet or she has died and he wrote this poem to try to bring her back into his life, her soul. He talks about the phone ringing and him rushing to it which I think has to do with him hoping his wife is the one calling him. I feel that Gerald is trying to show us that he wakes many nights and can't fall back asleep because he is thinking about his wife and what she would do if she were alive still. He talks about the light turning on and I feel that he is just imagining that now.
I noticed that Gerald has motifs through the poems in the video and the ones I read of his past and of his true love. He talks about his wife in almost all his poems and he always refers back to the holocaust and his "poverty" in Pittsburgh. This part is ironic to me because he says he lived in poverty but in the video he says he was in the lower to middle class which I don't consider poverty.
In "Potpourri" Stern is remembering his wife, whom we are given the impression has died, or is no longer with him. A recurring motif in this poem is gardening tools and products. For example he lists many types of flowers throughout the poem, and discusses things used for gardening like gloves and watering cans. But he also discusses all of the forgotten things in his house. I think that Stern wrote this poem in memory of his wife and to kind of portray her personality and what she loved to do. Like when he says " I will see if the thorn tree is still living..." the thorn tree seemed to be something that she had great care for and one of her prized possessions. So I think that in this poem Stern is releasing his sadness about the loss of his wife and what it is like without her.
ReplyDeleteIn "Magritte Dancing," Stern is basically describing himself as a troubled man who often has trouble sleeping and sometimes cannot even go to sleep, then when the mornings come he often finds himself wishing to be someone or somewhere else. He wants to live to the fullest but he feels like he can't so he imagines himself somewhere else living his life to the fullest he just isn't content with his current life. A recurring motif in this poem is locations. He mentions various locations throughout the poem such as Crete, Poland, and Zimbabwe. I think that this poem may also tie into the loss of his wife because in the poem he gives a small hint that he can fall asleep better when his wife comes tumbling into the room.
In the poem "Potpourri" the speaker is talking about all the troubles and hardships he goes through now that his wife has supposedly died or is no longer with him. I think the speaker is Mr. Stern and that he mentions the things that his wife loved in life to remember her because he feels alone and out of place now that he has nobody. In the poem, he mentions a lot of nature, he talks about "the sky between the eaves and black maples" and how the "thorn tree is still living" both of these reflect on nature and I think that's what his wife cherished in life and since she loved it so much he is thinking about her through the nature around him.
ReplyDeleteIn the poem "Margritte Dancing", I think Stern is talking about how hard it is for him to sleep at night. I think this ties into him missing his wife and thinking about her as in the first poem. He mentions how he has to go to sleep twice every night sometimes three times. I think Stern is mentally exhausted and lonely from being sad all the time. He says the third time the phone is ringing and I rush out into the hall then leave empty handed. This shows how Stern is almost living in a dream that his wife is still alive when she is actually not. Stern talks about many different places and I think he does this to try and think of a place where he could be happy, because now his life is just full of emptiness and sadness.
In "Potpourri" Gerald Stern talks about the death of (most likely) his wife. I would not have picked up on this a month ago. Stern talks about seeing the coffin in the ground with a black rose on top of it. He also uses many examples of nature in the poem. He talks about the mountains and plains and all kinds of flowers. He also talks about how his wife gives life to other things, which hints at how death leads to a 'rebirth.' These are two obvious motifs in the poem- life/death and nature. A less noticeable one is space. Stern talks about 'emptiness' and 'space' between objects (an emptiness he feels without his wife with him.)
ReplyDeleteIn "Magritte Dancing," Stern talks about a different kind of life and rebirth. He shows it through sleep. A man sleeps and is woken up, which is similar to coming back to life after dying. In this poem Stern uses a metaphor between dancing and living. He suggests that we all have our own dance that we dance and show others what kind of a person we are. It links dancing to how you present yourself to other people. The wife also appears in this poem, this time living, tripping over the speakers shoes in the bedroom.
Gerald Stern is an interesting author because his writing does not exactly go with his biography. In many of his poems, Stern portrays a wife. He did have a wife, but their marriage ended in the 80's, before Stern wrote many of his poems. You might say he portrays a wife because he saw how important she was after they split up, but we do not really know the reason.
Potpourri- In this poem I can now see that there is a connection between the speaker and flowers. He uses this connection to represent his hardships with flowers. Before I would have taken this literally. I can also use the authors words to see a tone of sadness, restlessness, and a tired feeling toward life. This helps me better understand that the author is describing his feelings towards his hardships while using his connection towards flowers. This gives me an understanding of the poem.
ReplyDeletePotpourri: the author is Writing about losing your one true love. He is writing about how is trying to cope with their death, even though to him they are everywhere and you just cant seem let it go. He is talking about the pain of losing a loved one and how to find comfort and peace with that pain and loss. He tells us his routine, to not mourn over her life but to celebrate. He teaches us in this poem that life goes on.
ReplyDeleteMagritte Dancing: He is talking about dreaming and being a restless sleeper. He talks about his wife waking him up in the third and fourth lines. But in fact he didn't have a wife when he wrote poetry so maybe that just his a imagination like the telephone ringing, which leads to my belief that he is an insomniac. this poem takes a twist and the beginning is totally different than the end. In this poem he teaches us that no matter what dance your own dance no matter where and what it might be. I believe he uses the character of a wife to convey the message to everyday normal people. And if he just wrote about this ghost, as a recurring theme people would thing he's either crazy or a horror genre poet. Stern is a teacher poet, he teaches you life lessons in his poems.
Magritte Dancing- in this poem the speakers tone is a big part of understanding what is going on in the speakers life. He is man who desires more than what he has. he is almost depressed about how is life is. He is unhappy with his life. he describes his hardships of sleep which seem to bother him deeply. There is a strong connotation of desire in this poem. Also I think that something is being expected by the speaker that could possibly affect his sleep although i am not sure what it is. The speaker is most likely not the author in this poem because our previous knowledge on the crazy/happy author compared to the sad/depressed speaker.
ReplyDeletePotpourri: A potpourri is a sack or bowl filled with dried petals and spices to create a type of perfume. This explains all the nature references in the first stanza to roses, iris and roots. I think the main theme of this poem is to show the likeliness between our everyday lives and nature. He shows how the simplicity of the past could exceed all that we have today, or that we have more than we need. I also think he is subliminally referring to the pain of losing his sister at a young age and trying to cope. It was such a traumatizing experience and poetry helped him to forget.
ReplyDeleteMagritte Dancing: I felt that this poem expressed some of Sterns reaccuring motifs, Nature, History, and Art. It also shows that Stern is a type of autobiographical writer. The main key that I found to be strange in this poem is that he says that his wife wakes him up. Upon watching the video though, I realized that he never had a wife. This may relate to the telephone that he thought he heard which may mean that as he dreams, he wishes for a life he yearns, or desires.In the video he mentions looking back on his life to think if he regrets anything, yet says he regrets nothing. I found that this was a very sharp turn for Stern since he seems like a happy man, but this poem is so sad.
In "Potpourri" he tries to remind himself of his wife by surrounding himself by the things she liked and what she liked to do and uses them as little mementos and keepsakes. He is trying to cope with his loss. In the poem "Magritte Dancing" he is a restless sleeper and imagines his wife is still with him but comes back to reality and is reminded by "coming back empty handed" and imagines that his wife isn't gone and she trips over his shoes going to the bathroom but he is wrong again. It is like he is drifting between imagination ,where his wife is still with him, and reality ,where he realizes that she is gone.
ReplyDeleteIn "Potpourri", Stern is talking about the loss of his wife, his true love, and how it has affected him. I think the words "eyes finally closed", "grave", and "buried" portray this idea along with the motif of death and loss. Stern also uses many motifs of nature such as flowers, mountains, and trees. I believe the phrases "half buried inside a tin pitcher" and "the thorn tree is still living" shows that his wife may have died in body but her spirit is ever living. Though he is trying to cope with what happened, there is still an emptiness that is prevalent.
ReplyDeleteIn "Magritte Dancing", Stern is describing how he is restive and has trouble sleeping. His mind wanders thinking about things such as locations, objects, and even, turtles. Stern may even be talking about his marriage in how he first went to bed "suddenly tired and angry". Maybe he and his wife had just gotten into a fight and he had went to bed, only for his wife to come later and wake him. (Stern's marriage ended in divorce) A repeated theme in this poem would be locations in which Stern fantasizes.
In "Potpourri," Stern talks about his wife's death. You know she has died because of the phrases and words used int the poem. For instance, "I watch her on the flowered sheets with her eyes finally closed," (lines 10-11) and words like "mournfulness," "chest," and "candles." These are all related to death and funerals. He also tries to compare her to nature, which is probably the nature she once loved.
ReplyDeleteIn "Magritte Dancing," Stern talks about his nights alone. He uses excuse like phones and and his wife that wake him at night. The truth is that he is just using these excuses to hide the fact that he is lonely and he misses his wife. This probably helps him cope with the pain, but it is really just masking it.
In the poem "Potpourri" by Gerald Stern, a basic motif is nature. We find examples of this motif in the opening line with the mention of dirt, and see it recurring quite frequently in many of the following lines. I feel that this mentioning of dirt and flowers is a metonym for the speaker's wife's love of gardening. As the poem progresses, the speaker is said to be alone all of the sudden. I believe this is due to a divorce he had, splitting himself and his wife, leaving him with a lot of time alone. Perhaps we can assume this to be an autobiographical poem, and Stern is telling the story of a portion of his life, for there is time allotted for him to write these poems once he is divorced.
ReplyDeleteIn the poem "Magritte Dancing" Stern begins by telling us about his troubles with sleep. He states he falls asleep twice. I thought of this to be a metaphor for life, with birth replacing sleep. For most of us, we believe that we are born to live on earth, but also born again to live in communion with God in heaven or we are born to hell. For most of us, however, we believe we will be born to live with God.This is an example of how poets use concrete ideas to illustrate abstract concepts.
Potpourri is a poem about death. The tone is solemn and many words connote dark, depressed, and heavy feelings. Although these feelings could correlate to any death, Stern's sister died at a young age. This could be him reflecting on his feelings at the time. To bring some light to his poems Stern mentions nature as a sort of escape from the feelings of oppression.
ReplyDelete"Margritte Dancing" is about sleeping troubles. Since most people can relate, this is a fairly basic theme. Both famous artists and places are mentioned in the poem. These motifs show that while lying there he is thinking about dancing to the art in various places. Just a few weeks ago I would not have know how much a poet's biography contributes to deeper understanding and connection of motifs and themes throughout their poems.
The dark and depressed tone of "Potpourri" lead me to believe that the poem is based on death. The poet Gerald Stern, had a sister who died at a young age and this could be what the poem is based on. Although it could be death in general, Stern's other poems suggest that it is most likely based on his sisters death. He mentions normal things such as trucks and nature words maybe to lighten the depressing mood and give insight to what death would be like.
ReplyDeleteThe second poem "Margritte Dancing" is about restless sleeping. The speaker of the poem has trouble sleeping and he gives us reasons why, such as the ringing phone and his wife going to the bathroom. These examples could mean something larger in his life that cause him stress or sadness which are the real reasons he cannot sleep. This is a good theme because many of the reader will be able to relate to it
Both of these poems relate strongly to the poets life. I would not have been able to see this autobiographical connection that Sterns poems have with out have learning how many poets do this in class.
The subject of "Potpourri" is obviously death. He shows this to us by using a dark tone. He uses words such as thorn tree, black maples, and crazy night bird which bring about a depressed tone, since these words don't make us think of happy things. The second poem, Magritte Dancing, is about insomnia. His tone is dark and depressing, like his first poem. He mentions how he lays in his bed for hours, watching the dark turn to light, as his mind drifts from art, artists, and famous cities. This is one motif that is shared between "Potpourri" and "Magritte Dancing". In the former poem, he mentions The Lavender Gate and the Moat, which are two locations that hold works of art and poetry. In the latter poem, he mentions famous artists and poets. These two poems are similar in both motifs and tone.
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