Meeting Gerald Stern

He was the visiting poet this week at EWU's Inland Northwest Center for Writers. I first met him at Thursday's Q & A...a funny, funny man...who had us sing "Popeye the Sailor Man" song, who told jokes, and talked about writing and his life. Afterwards, I got to eat dinner with him, along with our two professors Chris and Jonathan and some other graduate students. We ate at Catacombs and he sang German songs that echoed off the brick walls. He told fascinating stories and knows virtually everyone in the poetry literary world...one could play "Six Degrees of Separation from Gerald Stern." For example, he's really good friends with Jack Gilbert who taught for a year at Eastern before Jonathan Johnson (my advisor) did and occupied the same office. And Gerald (or Jerry, as his friends call him) also had Malena Morling as a student, who was a visiting poet in Nov. 2003, and for whom I made a cup of tea at the after-reading party at my house.

And his poetry reading Friday evening at Auntie's was just as entertaining. Even though I had not read much of his poetry before now, I was thoroughly enchanted...though I am often star-struck by literary celebrities whom I meet in the flesh. It amazes me that so many common people had no idea they ate in the same restaurant as him.