javajnkie's Full Review: Stephen Dunn - Different Hours: Poems
This was the first work by Dunn I'd ever read. I took my daughter to a lecture at the local university and we listened in awe as Stephen Dunn spoke. He was mesmerizing as he read poems from this book--and we were so in awe that my daughter rushed over to the book line to buy the book (and others) and be the first one in line to have him sign them.
Dunn's poetry is remarkable in that it speaks to the average person. There is no archaic language, and Dunn doesn't fight to find the words he wants. He writes from the heart, with a raw intensity that just makes you nod your head with complete understanding. His style reminds me of Frost, but not enough to say his inspiration was Frost.
Dunn's writing isn't pretentious--it's almost like sitting next to your grandpa and listening to him tell you about life. It's honest, and that feels good. It feels good even when you experience the sadness that sometimes comes with the poetry, and it feels good even when you realize he's sometimes saying things we've been taught not to verbally acknowledge.
An example of all of this is his poem Sixty. In this one, he tells us it's the day before his sixtieth birthday. He explains (oh-so-poetically) that his relatives all died before they hit sixty, and most from heart attacks. His readers feel his almost-fear that he won't make it through the night, and his earnest desire to live--really live--this night through. Here's an excerpt:
My sixtieth birthday is tomorrow.
Come, play poker with me,
I want to be taken to the cleaners.
I've had it with all stingy-hearted sons of b*tches.
A heart is to be spent...
....
On the best of days there's little more
than the faintest intimations. The millennium,
my dear, is sure to disappoint us.
I think I'll keep on describing things
to ensure that they really happened.
Dunn is excellent at capturing the events of life that we tend to just chalk up as experience. He saves them for us, and puts them into words we all can relate too. In Burying the Cat, Dunn relates the day his cat was killed by a neighbor's dog, and he buried it before his family got home in an effort to save his children from seeing their pet dead.
....For years I've known that to confess
is to say what one doesn't feel. I hereby
confess I was not angry with that dog,....
and after it had been buried and his family returned:
I remember feeling that strange satisfaction
I'd often felt after yardwork, some evidence
of what I'd done visible for a change.
I remember that after their shock, their grief,
I expected to be praised.
Dunn's final poem is the most excellent way to end the book. In Postmortem Guide he talks to his eulogist in advance, and says, in part:
...
And please, resist the temptation
of speaking about virtue.
The seldom-tempted are too fond
of that word, the small-
spirited, the unburdened.
Know that I've admired in others
only the fraught straining
to be good.
....
Still, for accuracy's sake you might say
I've often stopped,
that I rarely went as far as I dreamed.
....
Tell them I had second chances.
I knew joy.
I was burned by books early
and kept sidling up to the flame.
The bottom line:
I love Steven Dunn, and I'm thrilled to have found this 'new' poet--someone to speak to this age. I've often wondered who will stand out, which poets from our day and age will be quoted in years to come. Plath? Yes. And Dunn.
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