I like Alan Dugan a lot. Also, sorry, pr.
I didn’t really know Alan Dugan’s work until very recently, but was introduced to it through the I assume well known Love Song: I and Thou. It was a part of a lecture I attended, and the lecturer had a friend of mine stand up and read it at the very end of the lecture, the “Okay, thanks a lot,” moment. (The lecture was about irony. Or Irony, I suppose. An old subject, but certainly one worthy of discussion, as it tends to be so often misidentified.)
Since then, I’ve picked up Poems Seven, and have been enjoying it.
Dugan is a straight-ahead sort of writing, but he’s apparently also very formal. A fine combination.
Here’s my favorite:
AMERICAN AGAINST SOLITUDE
Ah to be alone and uninhibited!
To make mistakes in private, then
to show a good thing! But that’s
not possible: it’s in the Close of life
that towering Virtu happens. Why
be absent from the wheeling world?
It is an education! Act by act,
Futures materialize! So, go deal,
old bones, enjoy it while you may!:
eat, drink, think, and love; oh even work!,
as if all horrors are mistakes,
and make the social product: new
invisible skies arriving! full
of life, death, insanity, and grace!
The exclamation points are really nice in this poem. They shuttle between irony and earnestness, it seems. And the synthesis of the two poles is a satisfying feeling of joy, of amusement and inspiration.
PS pr, sorry that you have been holding it down here alone in the absence of our AWP-ing giants.
Tags: Alan Dugan
I think I refer to number 5 in my the levitationist post. matthew, you don’t need to apologize, but that it sweet. i am going to go have a martini now. i wish i were having one with you all in chicago.
Irony
1. the use of words to convey a meaning that is the opposite of its literal meaning: the irony of her reply, “How nice!” when I said I had to work all weekend.
2. Literature. a. a technique of indicating, as through character or plot development, an intention or attitude opposite to that which is actually or ostensibly stated.
b. (esp. in contemporary writing) a manner of organizing a work so as to give full expression to contradictory or complementary impulses, attitudes, etc., esp. as a means of indicating detachment from a subject, theme, or emotion.
3. Socratic irony.
4. dramatic irony.
5. an outcome of events contrary to what was, or might have been, expected.
6. the incongruity of this.
7. an objectively sardonic style of speech or writing.
8. an objectively or humorously sardonic utterance, disposition, quality, etc.
Oh, I’m not in Chicago, either. That’s why I feel bad. I should be helping hold down the fort.
Oh, I’m not in Chicago, either. That’s why I feel bad. I should be helping hold down the fort.
Back from martini, wine, mushroom soup, pasta with poached egg and some lamb ragu, some seriously wierdly stinky goat cheese with raisin confit on toast, a brandy- oof.
Matthew, I like this post. I didn’t find that poem ironic. Maybe you are right that it is a bit. I read it as sincere. I feel a bit ill from overeating. This happens at least twice a week. That is why the gym is my friend. But if you are not at awp, help out the htmlgiant fans, and keep me from posting semi-naked tennis players all week long. OK, now I may post another semi-naked tennis player. Just to honor my booziness.
I think it has a bit of an ironic. It’s wearier than it lets on. That’s what I love about it. I go back and forth with it.
I think it has a bit of an ironic. It’s wearier than it lets on. That’s what I love about it. I go back and forth with it.
“Edge.” A bit of an “ironic edge.”
“Edge.” A bit of an “ironic edge.”
Well, I reread it sober today. I see the edge. It is a fine poem. I like what it contemplates- if read with no irony in mind, it is heartbreaking and celebratory of life. Maybe it is that DFW thing I love so much “bothness”- both ironic and sincere. But I had never heard of the guy, so thank you Matthew.