Stephen Dunn
Stephen Dunn was born in New York City in 1939. He earned a B.A. in history and English from Hofstra University, attended the New School Writing Workshops, and finished his M.A. in creative writing at Syracuse University. Dunn has worked as a professional basketball player, an advertising copywriter, and an editor, as well as a professor of creative writing.
Dunn's books of poetry include Everything Else in the World (W. W. Norton, 2006); Local Visitations (2003); Different Hours (2000), winner of the 2001 Pulitzer Prize winner for poetry; Loosestrife (1996); New and Selected Poems: 1974-1994 (1994); Landscape at the End of the Century (1991); Between Angels (1989); Local Time (1986), winner of the National Poetry Series; Not Dancing (1984); Work & Love (1981); A Circus of Needs (1978); Full of Lust and Good Usage (1976); and Looking For Holes In the Ceiling 1974. He is also the author of Walking Light: Memoirs and Essays on Poetry (BOA Editions, 2001), and Riffs & Reciprocities: Prose Pairs (1998).
Dunn's other honors include the Academy Award for Literature, the James Wright Prize, and fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the New Jersey State Council on the Arts. He has taught poetry and creative writing and held residencies at Wartburg College, Wichita State University, Columbia University, University of Washington, Syracuse University, Southwest Minnesota State College, Princeton University, and University of Michigan. Dunn is currently Richard Stockton College of New Jersey Distinguished Professor of Creative Writing and lives in Port Republic, New Jersey.
“ConnubialBecause with alarming accuracy she’d been identifying patterns I was unaware of—this tic, that tendency, like the way I've mastered the language of intimacy in order to conceal how I felt— I knew I was in danger of being terribly understood.”
“That time I thought I was in loveand calmly said sowas not much different from the timeI was truly in loveand slept poorly and spoke out loudto the walland discovered the hidden geniusof my handsAnd the times I felt less in love,less than someone,were, to be honest, not so differenteither.Each was ridiculous in its own wayand each was tender, yes,sometimes even the false is tender.I am astonishedby the various kisses we’re capable of.Each from different heightsdiminished, which is simply the law.And the big bruisefrom the long fall looked perfectly whitein a few years.That astounded me most of all.”
“He held her like a new womanand what she feltfelt almost as good as love had,and each of them called it lovebecause precision didn’t matter anymore.”
“I’ll always deny that I kissed her.I was just whispering into her mouth.”
“Although I know it's unfair, I reveal myself one mask at a time.”
“I make myself up from everything I am, or could be. For many years I was more desire than fact. When I stop becoming, that’s when I worry.”
“I’ve had it with all stingy-hearted sons of bitches.A heart is to be spent.”
“All good poems are victories over something.”
“There are always the simple events of your life that you might try to convert into legend.”
“I've triedto become someone else for a while,only to discover that he, too, was me.”
“Bring to me, it said, continual proof / you've been alive.”
“Originality, of course, is what occurs when something new arises out of what's already been done.”
“May you turnstone, my daughter,into silk. May you make men better than they are.”
“Altruism is for thosewho can't endure their desires.There's a worldas ambiguous as a moan,a pleasure moanour earnest neighborsmight think a crime.It's where we could live.I'll say I love you,Which will lead, of course,to disappointment,but those words unsaidpoison every next moment.I will try to disappoint youbetter than anyone else has.--Mon Semblable”
“When I stop becoming, that's when I worry.”
“I love what's left after love has been tested.”
“I'll say I love you,Which will lead, of course,to disappointment,but those words unsaidpoison every next moment.I will try to disappoint youbetter than anyone else has.”
“Now and again I feel the astonishment of being alive like this, in this body.”