I.

A masterful long poem from one of our great American poets.

Gerald Sterns long poem I. is an extraordinary and wild compilation of poetic modes, moods, and registersmeandering and focused, hallucinatory and concrete, deranged and deeply ecstatic. Inspired by the sight of a derelict synagogue on the Lower East Side, I. is an intrinsically New York poem, concerned with shifting structures of place and identity in the face of time and rapid change. Though first written in the late aughts, Sterns brazen, mischievous politicality and blasphemous spirituality, refracted through the biblical book and prophetic character of Isaiah, feel particularly relevant to the present moment. Intertextual, critical, at times jubilant and derisive, I. brims with Sterns idiosyncratic mix of high intellect and chthonic populism.

The book features Sterns original introduction, as well as a foreword and afterword written by poet-luminaries Ross Gay and Alicia Ostriker.