Poetry Friday: My New Favorite Poet, Alan Dugan
March 2nd, 2007 by eisha
A couple of weeks ago Nancy at Journey Woman shared the amazing poem “Love Song: I and Thou” for PF, and I fell deeply in love. Somehow I’ve gone my whole life without ever hearing of Alan Dugan, and I set about to rectify that. I checked out Poems Seven today, and after an hour of flipping around in it at random, I can’t understand how I ever lived without him. What amazes me is how he’s able to create these incredibly potent images with such a direct and understated style. No florid vocabulary, no theatrics, just pure hard poetry, as bracing and beautiful as standing on a rocky New England beach in the middle of winter. Thank you, Nancy.
Here’s a bit of another new favorite poem, “Against a Sickness: To the Female Double Principle God.”
She said: “I’m god and allof this and that world and lovegarbage and slaughter all the timeand spring once a year. Once a yearI like to love. You can adjustto the discipline or not,and your sacrificial actcalled ‘Fruitfulness in Decay’would be pleasing to meas long as you did it with joy.Otherwise, the prayer ‘Decay,Ripe in the Fruitfulness’will do if you have to despair.”
Love it? Me too. Read the rest here.
{Note: Today’s Poetry Friday round-up is here at Big A, little a} . . .
Thanks for the new-to-me poet, Eisha. Good stuff.
Oh, so glad you liked Dugan enough to look further. I’ve long been a fan of “Love Song: I and Thou.” You’re right about the direct and understated style — it’s surprisingly simple but says so much.
like i said, it’s all thanks to you, nancy!