Collected poems

by Alan Dugan

Book Overview

Poetry of Alan Dugan, an underrated master. This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0300011180
• ISBN13: 9780300011180
• Release Date: January 1969
• Publisher: Yale University Press
• Length: 200 Pages
• Weight: 0.50 lbs.

Customer Reviews

Utterly-Conversational Talky Poet of Unique Voice-Tone!

Well, I DID want to tell you why Dugan's one of my six most-favorite poets. It's because of his VOICE. His TONE-of-talking. Theme-wise, he navigates well the socio-political chaos and absurdity of the parlous present, but heck how CHATTILY, how CONVERSATIONALLY, he talks about it! LOQUACIOUSLY rattling on in that inimitable street-corner buttonholing TONE of his, wry, wacky, discouraged-but-upbeat, all in arm-gesturing and eyebrow-raising SPEECH-STYLE. But no....you see that I can't tell or INFORM you why Dugan's voice appeals-can I, now. So I better ILLUSTRATE his "urban-yawpy" tone unique as his fingerprint, with selected snippets quoted directly. So enough of praising secondhand, here are some selected SOUND-BITES from Dugan himself. They do present, I feel, what I'd call his stamp-of-style, namely "DICTY" (as in Take Dictation of the GENIALLY-GARRULOUS speech as she is spoken....)(Heck, if you went no further than the poems' TITLES, they themselves carry Dugan's colloquial spritziness. Such as "What Happened? What Do You Expect?" And, "Transcribed Conversation in Praise of Cows." And, "Winter's Onset from an Alienated Point of View." But check out choice sound-bites such as the following:)(1) HISTORY & SOCIETY. Dugan is on the lively move:"Whatever was living is dead and a lot of what was dead has begun to move around, so who knows what the plan for a good state is: they all go out on the roads!""He dreamed America up, and I played Indian against his cowboy lies because: tradition is for the rich to love, the clerks to ape, the poor to suffer, so I wander to take the air, regards, and joys....""Some barbarian raped some peasant woman who produced a child who ultimately produced you and me, so there is this family continuity, so don't cry, it's obvious, look around!....""She's grateful, but goes out with a bruiser. Blood passions arise and die in lawyers' smiles, a few children suffer for life, and that's all...."(2) DAILY EXUBERANCE. Dugan has got it, and he shares it:"Then it was Saturday, Saturday, Saturday! Love must be the reason for the week! We went shopping! I saw clouds! The children explained everything! I could talk about the main thing!"...."After long-haired women have unwired their pencil-pierced buns, it's an event with pennants when the Great Falls of emotion say that beauty is in residence, grand in her hotel of flesh,...."(3) SEASONAL SPRIGHTLINESSES. Dugan is attuned to weather--outer, and "inner":"The wind came in for several thousand miles all night and changed the close lie of your hair this morning....No wonder your laugh rings like a chisel as it cuts your children's new names in the tombstone of thin air.""In fall and whiskey weather when the eye clears with the air and blood comes up to surface for one last time....All appetites revive and love is possible again in clarity without the sweats of heat;....""The first cold front came in whining like a carpenter's plane and curled the warm air up the sky: winter is for