Gerald Stern, one of the greatest living American poets, and author of twenty collections of poetry and four books of essays. After reading, Letter to a Young Poet, Stern called it another “Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man,” but a portrait which in its accuracy–again, honesty–is as original, unique, and every bit as wise as Joyce’s. It reminds me of Walt Whitman’s lines: “It is time to explain myself; let us stand up.”
