Odd Mercy: Poems

“For over two decades, no one has equaled Stern’s compassionate, surreal parables about the burden of and the exaltation at being alive.”― Library Journal The centerpiece of Gerald Stern’s ninth collection is a long poem titled “Hot Dog,” named for a beautiful street woman who lives in and around Tompkins Square Park. Other characters in this poem are St. Augustine, Walt Whitman, Noah, Gerald Stern himself, and a ninety-year-old black preacher from the Midwest. In “Hot Dog,” and throughout, Stern wrestles with the issues―hope, memory, faith―that have always occupied him.