Decorum is by Stephen Dunn from his New and Selected Poems: 1974-1994. It’s on a workshop debating the right word choice for a poem/ experience on “making love”? or not. It just slays me for being painfully accurate and funny. Thanks for Jude pointing it out.
Dunn‘s a writing teacher from New Jersey who won the 2001 Pulitzer for his book of poetry published in 2000. In P&W he talks about what effect that had. In it he defines a “trivia poem” as any that is “nice”. He was asked this as well,
P&W: What constitutes a “failed” poem to you?
SD: A failed poem would be one in which I didn’t get beyond what I already knew.
He’s got quite a lot of titles out including 14 poetry collections and a back-in-print book of essays on poetry and autobiographical anecdotes.
What I see of his poems from what I can get online is that there is very much storytelling and truth-seeking, but he’s got a wonderful rocking rhythm in pieces like The Unsaid. The capture is of an observant external eye the US, as in Hawthorne in Tuckerton,
“Scratch an American,” he was overheard saying
at the diner, “and you’ll find a Puritan.”
And one man nodded while another
in a John Deere cap swallowed hard,
changed the subject to the Phillies.
The local library only has one book by him from 1986. I can keep my eyes open to see more samples tho. He was not on my radar at all but once blogs pick it up, blip, blip, blip.
Tangentially, in Poets & Writers, Surviving a Month Without Internet By Stephen Elliott.
my favorite stephen dunn poem.
not sure if you’ve stumbled across it yet. 🙂
The Room and the World
Stephen Dunn
The room was room enough for one
or maybe two if the two had just
discovered each other and were one.
Outside of the room was the world
which had a key to the room, and knowing
a little about the world he knew
how pointless it was to change the lock.
He knew the world could enter the room
anytime it wanted, but for the present
the world was content to do its damage
elsewhere, which the television recorded.
Always, he kept in his mind the story of the man
hanging from a cliff, how the wildflowers
growing there looked lovelier than ever.
That was how he felt about his one chair
and the geometry of the hangers in his closet
and the bed that fit him like a body shirt.
Sometimes the world would breathe heavily
outside the door because it was obscene
and could not help itself. It was this
that led him eventually to love the world
for its pressure and essential sadness.
One day he just found himself opening
the door, allowing the inevitable.
The world came in and filled the room.
It seemed so familiar with everything.
Wow, that’s another kick@ass poem. Wonderful.