What Goes On: Selected and New Poems 1995-2009

by Stephen Dunn

Brilliant new poems and an expansive gathering from six collections by a Pulitzer Prize winner celebrated as “indispensable.”

What Goes On displays the evolving style and sensibility of a major award-winning poet, and a traceable growth that has blossomed into a provocative confrontation with questions of consciousness and existence. Stephen Dunn’s poems probe life’s big questions without ever losing sight of the significance of the mundane.

Genres: Poetry, Literary Fiction, Contemporary

205 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 5, 2009

About the author

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.

Reviews

[Joe · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love it when a poet can tell a story. He had me from the first poem, "Tucson," from the opening lines:

A man was dancing with the wrong woman
in the wrong bar, the wrong part of town.

to the middle lines:

I'd forgotten
how fragile the face is, how fists too
are just so many small bones.

to the close:

My friend said nothing's wrong, stay put,
it's a good fighting bar, you won't get hurt
unless you need to get hurt.

Another poem has a dead-on analysis is the Olympic skaters Tonya and Nancy:

One woman has nothing out of place
as she slides into our living rooms.
The other can't control her face.

In a prose poem he captures the high school reunion:

So interesting to see how character can overcome bone structure. Pretty, handsome, cute—how those attributes, those intimidations, once seemed permanent. No need to mark the many ways faces go bad. Or the sadness, for example, of remaining cute.

He writes of a woman with cancer:

we who had seen her truly alive
and then merely alive,
what could we do but revise
our phone book, our hearts,
offer a little toast to what goes on.

or he observes the sexual act:

perhaps the beautiful accident
of her bra commingling with your sock on a bedpost,
and just a stain or two to prove nothing like this
could ever be immaculate, Jesus Christ having come
involuntarily from your lips,

or the transformation of New Jersey:

When it became clear aliens were working here
with their dead-giveaway, perfectly cut Armani suits,
excessive politeness, and those ray guns
disguised as cell phones tucked into their belts,
I decided we had two choices: cocktail party
to befriend them, or massive air strikes...

As a college graduate he searches for a job:

History major? the interviewer said, I think
you might be good at designing brochures.
I was. Which filled me with desire
for almost everything else in the world.

He writes of Glenn Gould phoning Barbra Streisand at 3 a.m., or of Jeanne Moreau calling Glenn Gould. He conducts an autopsy of Alan Ginsberg's dying words. He contemplates the love life of mermaids.

I could go on. When he's good, he's really good.

[Beverly J. · Rating 1 out of 5]

I got to page 132 of 195 but I just couldn't play along anymore. "....a succubus bitten moon followed me home last night...." no, I don't think so. Goodbye

[Ana · Rating 4 out of 5]

A Postmortem Guide

Do not praise me for my exceptional serenity.
Can't you see I've turned away
from the large excitements,
and have accepted all the troubles?

Go down to the old cemetery; you'll see
there's nothing definitive to be said.
The dead once were all kinds—
boundary breakers and scalawags,
martyrs of the flesh, and so many
dumb bunnies of duty, unbearably nice.

I've been a little of each.

And please, resist the temptation
of speaking about virtue.
The seldom-tempted are too fond
of that word, the small-
spirited, the unburdened.
Know that I've admired in others
only the fraught straining
to be good.

Adam's my man and Eve's not to blame.
He bit in; it made no sense to stop.

Still, for accuracy's sake you might say
I often stopped,
that I rarely went as far as I dreamed.

And since you know my hardships,
understand they're mere bump and setback
against history's horror.
Remind those seated, perhaps weeping,
how obscene it is
for some of us to complain.

Tell them I had second chances.
I knew joy.
I was burned by books early
and kept sidling up to the flame.

Tell them that at the end I had no need
for God, who'd become just a story
I once loved, one of many
with concealments and late-night rescues,
high sentence and pomp. The truth is

I learned to live without hope
as well as I could, almost happily,
in the despoiled and radiant now.

You who are one of them, say that I loved
my companions most of all.
In all sincerity, say that they provided
a better way to be alone.

[Wilbur · Rating 5 out of 5]

"After the power to choose
A man wants the power to erase."

And now I don't feel so alone.

[Samantha · Rating 4 out of 5]

I thought each poem was to the point and without frills or unnecessary embellishments. The stories told through poetry were vivid and memorable. I was impressed with how the author could shoot me with an emotion in only a few words. The words for each poem seemed carefully chosen. I enjoyed reading this book as I'm sure I'll come back to it again.

[Taylor Franson-Thiel · Rating 4 out of 5]

I did quite enjoy this selection and found so many lines that moved me.

I will say, there were moments (as there always are) that didn’t vibe with me. But there was more than enough good to make up for it.

[Brian Wasserman · Rating 2 out of 5]

Too self referential, allusions here and there
no real great breakthroughs, metaphors or revelations, someone hand Mr. Dunn a shovel

[Tracy Marks · Rating 5 out of 5]

Stephen Dunn is one of our best contemporary poets. His poems are accessible not obscure, and well-crafted.

[Jon · Rating 5 out of 5]

I commented on another one of Stephen Dunn's collections, and this one picks up where that one ended, chronologically. It is also superb. In an economy of words he describes what we know is real.

[Patrick Mcgee · Rating 5 out of 5]

Stephen Dunn is quite the poet. I enjoyed his more narrative style, which is right up my alley and writing style when tackling poetry. I enjoyed reading this collection that spanned nearly fifteen years of his work. He is not the kind of poet to play around too much with the form or structure of his poems, but you can see an unmistakable growth in his poetry even later in his career. The one exception concerning the structure is with one particular book of poems, Riffs and Reciprocities, where all the poems are prose proems. His same lyrical style is pleasant and the flow of the words and rhythm are still present. Overall, a great book of poems to check out from one of America's greats.

[Kathleen · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book came my way, and I read it, realizing I had not read a complete book of Dunn's poems, though I'd enjoyed individual poems in journals and anthologies over the years. This, as a "selected and new," was a great way to watch the arc of his life and art and get a sense of his obsessions and changes over time.

While I generally prefer lyric poems, and there are plenty of those here, it was fun to take the little trip in prose poems in Riffs & Reciprocities, showing that poems can be mini-essays.

Enjoyed Dunn's humor, gentle flow, and simplicity of language, which handled complexity of thought just fine. Also, in the last poem, I got to find out "What Men Want."

[John Dalton · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book of selected poems means more to me than any other. I've read and reread every poem in this book numerous times and they keep revealing their wisdom. For the record I'm not a poet (though I do write fiction). I come to poetry not for insular words games or for the stringing together of vague but evocative phrases. That's relatively easy to do. What's hard is to craft a poem of genuine and original insight and to do it with real clarity. More than any other contemporary poet, Stephen Dunn does that for me. I'm altogether grateful for his work.

[Abby · Rating 4 out of 5]

Cheeky. The beauty builds over the years of his work, drawing away from his tendency toward the simplistic and jokey. I did, naturally, love all of the dogs who trotted in and out of the poems. And he is a calm atheist, a readable atheist. I liked his work overall, but I’m not sure it’s the sort of the thing that I’d be inclined to revisit.

Favorite poems:
“Ars Poetica”
“The Living”
“John & Mary”
“The Reverse Side”
“Knowledge”
“The Unsaid”

[Lisa · Rating 5 out of 5]

I asked for this collection of poems for Christmas after I read "The Imagined" in The New Yorker a while back. A recurring theme is definitely passive dissatisfaction with one's life, but Dunn manages not to be depressing. He's great at describing that feeling of having your mind somewhere else other than where you are. It made me wonder why I don't spend more time reading poetry.

[Ann Woodlief · Rating 4 out of 5]

There are poems here that really stick in my mind. Not too experimental, and there are backbones of stories and relationships in many. Perhaps it helps that he is my age, and the references to what's going on in the world are clear enough, as well as the hard won lessons of life and love.

[Joan Colby · Rating 5 out of 5]

This collection from Dunn's latest five books plus some newer poems contains many wise and persuasive works by the Pulitzer Prize winning author. Dunn is never gaudy or image driven, much of his work is reflective, but always astutely observant.

[Karen Douglass · Rating 4 out of 5]

Hmmm, I just commented on this book and don't see it. So, again, I like his poetry. It is understandable without being shallow or egotistical. He knows his craft and uses it to good effect. Many times I underlined a fresh turn of phrase or image.

[Steven Hendrix · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was my first time reading Dunn after hearing several friends praise him. I now understand why. He is instantly one of my favorites. Incredible depth of thought in describing the mundane. Plain language that moves and at times shocks with the simplistic beauty.

[Kelley · Rating 4 out of 5]

Dunn is always good stuff. Beautiful to read, hear and thought-provoking.

[Marissa · Rating 5 out of 5]

Dunn is eloquent and elegant, without ever overdoing it. Though I'd read a number of the poems in previously published books it was nice to see them fit together with new pieces.

[alicia · Rating 4 out of 5]

Just about every poem I read by Stephen Dunn stalks my thoughts for a little while - most recently its "Sleeping with Others."

[Ako31 · Rating 4 out of 5]

humble and sweet, personal and some great imagery.

but i just keep coming back to so much humility about life and himself despite being a wordmaster.

[Michelle · Rating 4 out of 5]

He also wrote a poem about Jack and Jill after their fall. Darn.

[Jeffrey (Akiva) Savett · Rating 5 out of 5]

Stephen Dunn may be my favorite poet and this so one of his nicest collections. Not as indispensable as his "new and selected" but slimmer and equally as awe filled.

[RUSA CODES · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was one of the 2010 RUSA Notable Books winners. For the complete list, go to http://www.ala.org/ala/mgrps/divs/rus...

[Cindy Cunningham · Rating 5 out of 5]

BUY IT! READ IT! READ IT AGAIN!

As many followers know, Dunn is aging and is not in the best of health, but his work continues to astound and amaze.

[Brian · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is what modern American poetry is supposed to be.

[Natasha · Rating 4 out of 5]

Stephen Dunn can write about average, commonplace things in new ways, in sensuous ways, in emotional ways, like no other poet I've read.

[Jeffrey Bumiller · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is now one of my absolute favorite books of poetry. This is a special book for me because it was an unexpected gift, and I got to hear the author speak and have him sign it.

[Benjamin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Writes with clarity like Kooser. An earthiness I appreciate.