Everything Else in the World

by Stephen Dunn

Book Overview

In his fourteenth collection of poems, Pulitzer Prize winner Stephen Dunn reveals his concerns, ranging from meditations on salvation and time to the difficulties and pleasures of loving in this "already brutal century." In language that Gerald Stern has called "unbearably fearless and beautiful," Dunn continues to probe the elusive in the lives we live.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0393062392
• ISBN13: 9780393062397
• Release Date: September 2006
• Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
• Length: 96 Pages
• Weight: 0.59 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 5.8" x 8.5"

Customer Reviews

Emptiness

Still enjoying the book...have read the first half of the book in one sitting and the mundaneness of life (having to go to work) has forced me to delay reading the rest... ANyone who can write like this ...is a genius! EMPTINESS I've learned mine can't be filled, only alchemized. Many times it's become a paragraph or a page. But usually I've hidden it, not knowing until too late how enormous it grows in its dark. ...

A great american poet

Dunn well deserved the Pulitzer. His body of work is impressive and while this voulme is good, it is not one of best but still a joy. He ruminates on life from the perspective of age, "A Small Part"(many summers later I'd learn to love/the shadows illumination creates/but experience always occurs too late/to undo what's been done). And he imparts the wisdom of having seen a lot over a very long time in "Critics" ("Their job is sometimes to winnow/and omit.Yours is to go on...your job is to show up,continue on.") For first timers, try"Bewteen Angels" or "Local Visitations."

poems rooted in common soil

Over time, Stephen Dunn has dared to tackle the intangible as well as the concrete. This is in addition to the multitudinous sides of human existence he has always explored. Dunn does not reveal what we want to know about ourselves, but what we need to know. Just like in _Riffs & Reciprocities_, where opposites found similarities and agreement and common bonds within each other, so do the explorations of this fine poet in this collection touch upon not only the light and dark, but the softly illuminated as well. From taking on the challenge of explicating the adulterer to the point of empathy and maybe unwilling agreement with the reader, to the wisdom of self that comes through the revealing of dark family secrets, Dunn rubs the tarnish off of hidden heirlooms that may still never make their way out to the mantle to be proudly displayed, but will make themselves a little more relevant to your daily chores. Dunn is someone to read a little more of every morning to make help make your day a little more meaningful.