The One Thing in Life by Gerald Stern Gerald Stern: If I could choose one poem of mine to explain my stance, or my artistic position, it would be “The One Thing in Life,” which appears in Lucky Life. In this poem I stake out a place for myself, so to speak, that was overlooked or ignored or disdained, a place no one else wanted. I mean this in a psychological and metaphorical and philosophical sense. When I think about the place “no one else wanted,” I think of an abandoned or despise...
