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Bert Stern is the author of two previous poetry collections, Silk/The Ragpicker’s Grandson and Steerage, as well as the critical book Wallace Stevens: Art of Uncertainty, and Winter in China, a monograph on American expatriate Robert Winter. He is Milligan Professor of English Emeritus at Wabash College, and has also taught at the University of Thessaloniki as Fulbright Professor of English and at Peking University. Stern served as chief editor for Hilton Publishing, and for fifteen years taught for Changing Lives through Literature, a program designed for men and women on probation. He lives in Somerville, Massachusetts.

Bert Stern

The Drunken Captain Remembers the Sea

The Drunken Captain Remembers the Sea
and gladly drowns there.   Children
remember birdsong that politicians
have forgotten.  Greedy gulls peck
along the beach, forgetting
freshening winds.  Come spring,
empty and anxious, poll booths
await the end of the world
but would vote for peace
if they could register.

— Bert Stern

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