Early Collected Poems gathers the poems from the first six books of Gerald Stern s body of work. A master poet, Stern has sought new language for the overlooked, neglected, and unseen facets of human experience. Whether writing about modern poets, Hebrew prophets, death, war, or love, Stern s literary songs are sharp, surprising, and unerring in their delivery (Ploughshares, Editor s Choice). from The Red Coal The coal has taken over, the red coal is burning between us and we are at its mercy as if a power is finally dominating the two of us; as if we re huddled up watching the black smoke and the ashes; as if knowledge is what we needed and now we have that knowledge. Now we have that knowledge.