Customer Reviews

Poems Seven: New and Complete Poetry

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Alan Dugan, first published in the early sixties, has always been a rebel. His work is easily recognized, dense and irreverant. He has maintained a style throughout the years that is unmistakable. If you want to produce modern poetry, do yourself a favor and read Alan Dugan.

Forget the dismal frightened little p-c conformists whose fears have annihilated their sensibilities & whose greatest thrill in life is trashing brilliant iconoclastic talent. This is first rate stuff, cerebral & visceral & on target at all times. This is Poetry!

I first read Alan Dugan in 1962. I have all six, now seven, volumes of his poetry. I taught his poems to my students of all ages for 30 years. His words make him one of my oldest, most trusted friends. Too bad I didn't teach enough children to feel the irony in "On an East Wind from the Wars" or "How We Heard the Name." Now we "ba-bas" are really in for it. Read Dugan if you haven't. Start with volume 1.

This book of poetry is amazing. It is modern, ironic, hyperrational, and mostly free verse. It doesn't stint on the intellect, but doesn't come off as arrogant. It is everything I love in postmodern American poetry. I have thoroughly enjoyed reading it both aloud and to myself. Alan Dugan will be remembered.

I read a lot of poetry. Somehow I had completely missed Alan Dugan. Then, thankfully, the National Book Awards judges picked Poems 7 for the 2001 award. It's an extraordinary book; Dugan is an extraordinary poet. He should have won the Pulitzer, too, but he may just be too left-wing and energetic and raucous and funny for the Pulitzer. He's also dead serious, and makes a whole lot of other poets writing today look like dilettantes, dandies, stuffed shirts, lightweights and poseurs. These are mostly short, narrative, clear, yet also distinctly, and importantly, strange poems. They're working-class, brainy, rebellious, delightful. Buy this book!

Alan Dugan's poetry is wonderfully crisp. He writes poetry with the seriousness it deserves while also displaying a comical side. His depth of intelligence is matched by no other living poet. Buy this volume and be amazed. If you aren't amazed then you should try reading it again.

It is with great disappointment that I write how unhappy I was with this book. I heard Dugan on NPR and the poems he read were intriguing...his voice plain and straightforward. In the interview he did mention that his writer's voice has not aged...that it is still 16 years old. This is obvious in most of his poetry. Even before I heard his interview I felt I was reading something written by an adolescent boy. That he can write about the mystery of skunk cabbage emerging through the snows and suddenly slip into adolescent penis metaphors makes me wonder how he won the National Book Award this month. There were a few gems and I kept hoping and wishing for more but, sadly, I couldn't find even one poem to move my world...which is what so much great poetry can do. His images felt hollow, his language trite and there was no flow...no spirit in the poetry. Sorry, this one gets returned.