Prize-winning poet Gerald Stern dies aged 97

Gerald Stern in 1998 (AP)

Gerald Stern, one of America’s most loved and respected poets who wrote with spirited melancholy and earthly humour about his childhood, Judaism, mortality and the wonders of the contemplative life, has died aged 97.

Stern, New Jersey’s first poet laureate, died on Thursday at Calvary Hospice in New York City, according to his longtime partner, Anne Marie Macari.