Local Visitations: Poems

by Stephen Dunn

Wise and searching new poems from the winner of the 2000 Pulitzer Prize in Poetry.

In his twelfth collection, his first since winning the Pulitzer Prize, Stephen Dunn turns his keen gaze on Sisyphus, our contemporary Everyman. Free, for the time being, from the power of the gods and the ceaseless weight of the rock, he struggles to navigate twenty-first-century America. In language by turns mordant and tender, often elegiac, Dunn illuminates the quotidian burdens of his all-too-human hero, as well as the abrasions of ambivalence and choice, finally concluding that "here / and there, though mostly here, even fate is reversible / with struggle or luck."



In a second sequence of poems, nineteenth-century novelists become "local visitors" to the author's South Jersey towns. "Chekhov in Port Republic," "Jane Austen in Egg Harbor," "Dostoyevsky in Wildwood": these inventions and others give Dunn provocative new latitudes. As in his previous books, "he balances the casual and the vivid as he plumbs the ambiguity and mystery of human relations" (New York Times Book Review).

Genres: Poetry

97 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 2003

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

[Jimmy · Rating 5 out of 5]

He has a section with Sisyphus as a character and another with 19th century authors visiting places today.

Here is his wonderful invitation poem that starts it all off:

A BOWL OF FRUIT
by Stephen Dunn

For me, the pleasure of poetry
is taking it apart.
—Jeanne-Andree Nelson

Jeanne, I have spent days arranging
this bowl of fruit, all for you,
knowing how much you love fruit
(not to eat, of course, but to examine),
and I’ve been careful to make sure
the bananas are the shape of bananas,
that the oranges rhyme with oranges,
and for your pleasure I’ve included
a lone pear, which may signify
something to you I haven’t intended,
which is my intention.
No doubt you’ve begun to question
why the quince and the apple
are so close together, and (knowing you)
if there might be a worm
in the apple, whether this gift
is a gift at all. And perhaps it’s true
that I’ve covered up the worm hole
with putty, painted over it perfectly,
though this would be a mystery
that only can be solved
by cutting open or biting into,
letting the juices run down the sides
of your mouth, or onto your hands.
It would be the kind of bold probing
I would love for you to love, the final
messiness of theory, still-life breaking open
into life, the discovery that the secret worm,
if real, will not permit you any distance.
But surely by now you’ve come to realize
there is no worm, only this bowl of fruit
made out of words, only these seductions.

[Lorenzo · Rating 2 out of 5]

I’d like to say that it’s beyond me how this thing got a Pulitzer, but unfortunately, my faith in the Pulitzer has long since been gutted.

This book is empty. What do I mean? Allow me to flip to a random page. (I landed on 51.) The poem here is titled “She”. I have just reread this poem in attempt to
pick out a line which exemplifies what I mean, but, being empty, none of the lines do so better than the others. We have: “She loved white lilies and a good rain.” Not a terrible opening, but nothing that catches one’s attention. The second line is probably the most interesting: “About such, she was of the many.” But then you go on: “she preferred swamps to the postcards / lakes could be,” or “Because she wasn’t lost, she couldn’t be found in her quietness.” or “She slid through small openings in caves, / bringing with her her own light.”

It’s not even that these lines are awful, more just that they contain nothing. There’s nothing that makes me think, makes me sit up in my chair, makes me consider the way I look at the world or marvel at what language is capable of. There’s just nothing. It doesn’t even read like poetry. It reads like really mediocre short fiction in verse.

It’s safe though, being nothing. Because it isn’t strictly bad (hence the two stars). But who has time to read something that doesn’t (at least slightly) destabilize you?

[Tracy Marks · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is my favorite collection of Stephen Dunn poems (though admittedly I've only read four) and one of the best books I've poetry I've read. His poem Crossings is magnificent..........and since I teach 19th century literature, I found the dozen or so final poems in the book about 19th century writers encountering contemporary times is a joy to read. There are many excellent poems in this collection - at least 15 I marked as my very favorites, though in most books of poetry I usually only choose 3 or 4 "winners" if that. Stephen Dunn writes accessible (understandable) poetry, and often with marvelous, unexpected turnings of phrases and choice of words. Highly recommended.

[Reba Reads · Rating 5 out of 5]

Dunn published this just after Different Hours won him the Pulitzer. Like the rest of his work, Local Visitations is affecting; I've bookmarked at least four poems from it and consider this slim volume worthy of a re-read in the future.

[John · Rating 4 out of 5]

Dunn is a quiet poet on page. He moves slowly and carefully down the page with wisdom, the measured free verse usually ending with a recognition of something that was not there when the poem began. The local visitations part of the book is a wonderful section that ties writers of the 19th century to communities of South Jersey, where the shorelines, cranberry bogs, and pine lands come alive as much as the dead writers do.

[Binx Perino · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was gifted to me on my birthday recently and I'm thankful that it landed in my hands. Really spoke to me. I love absurdists.

"He tipped her well, / wondering if anyone could more than glimpse another's hell."

[Elizabeth · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars

[Joeji · Rating 5 out of 5]

As an avid New Jersey Partionialist and a South Jersey Patriot, I obviously love the last sequence of poems in Dunn's collection--"Local Visitations," for me at least, is poetry that is immediately recognizable and at the same time magically executed. For instance, anyone from South Jersey would recognize the cranberry bogs, the SJ towns like Wildwood, Egg Harbor, and even the degradation in the slums of Atlantic City , but we are experiencing it through the eyes of Dunn's 18th century authors; Twain, Tolstoy, Hawthorne, Shelley, etc. A wonderful experiment in the what-if of literature and locality.

All of the poems in this collection seem to start with the idea of "what if?"

What if Charles Dodson/Lewis Carroll came back to life?
What if bats and angels traded places?
What if Sisyphis lived in the suburbs?

Stemming from each "What if" idea, Dunn writes poems that investigate the aches, the humor, and the disorientation inherent in the everyday human experience.

[Abraham · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is the kind of well-assembled book that ought to be read in a single sitting. That said, It is also the kind of book where you can skip spots. It is clearly the work of a poet long past the zenith of his inspiration, one searching around for something to write about. Persona poems go well in the hands of these old masters, as do retellings of old stories. Poems about the mildly bland details of an uneventful marriage do not. This collection really is worth reading for the Sisyphus poems, which are pretty wonderful, and then a bit for the poems of the old writers (Flaubert, Lewis Carrol, Dickinson, Dickens etc.) in modern-day New Jersey (mostly south). There are some beautiful lines in these and other poems, but you are left wondering if there shouldn't be term limits on poets.

[Douglas Donaldson · Rating 5 out of 5]

I first came upon this poet--fortunate me!--at a reading a few years ago in Salt Lake City. This book is my favorite collection of his poems in my growing stack. The title comes from the last section of the book, where Mr. Dunn imagines the sudden and inexplicable return of several 19th Century novelists to specific towns in modern America. While the best poems in the collection are not found in this portion of the book, the idea nevertheless takes hold of the reader and even produces the very hauting Dunn describes. I especially was taken with the Tolsoy and Austin poems. Highly recommended!

[Jason · Rating 3 out of 5]

You must read this book if you are familiar with 19th century novelists and poets. Dunn breaks this collection into three sections, the final section his most successful. My favorite poem in this collection is "The Arm," which is about a plastic doll arm a speaker finds in a pond. It's quite brilliant.

[GreenApple Alice · Rating 3 out of 5]

The second half of this book is poetry about authors living in certain towns. The poems are great if you know anything about the lives of these (dead) authors. The first half of the book has some amazing poetry about Sisyphus and some poems I go back to over and over again.

[Dennis · Rating 3 out of 5]

Must Read: 1
Well-Written: 3
Important: 1
Accessible: 5
Kept My Attention: 5

Enjoyed the poems more when they focused on Sisyphus, less when the literary device of transporting famous authors was used (last half of the book).

[Di · Rating 5 out of 5]

Stephen Dunn officially made it into my (long) list of favourite poets, after confirming that he can draw from me that sigh that I let out after reading a good piece of poetry, poem after poem - from both this collection and from Different Hours.

[Shriram · Rating 5 out of 5]

Local Visitations will take your breath away, as it did to me. Stephen Dunn's poems take you through a plethora of emotions. While the common man, Sisyphus, makes you feel empathetic, literary legends coming back to life is just pure delight!

Recommended.

[Sam Albala · Rating 4 out of 5]

LOVED Stephen Dunn's Local Visitations. The ideas and the literary poems were such a great find especially with his discussions of myth and use of language. I highly recommend his poetry, in not for content, than simply for technique. You will not be disappointed.

[Derek W. · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book for me was like going home.

[Tricia · Rating 5 out of 5]

Restored my faith in modern poetry and the Pulitzer prize.

[Liam Malone · Rating 5 out of 5]

The section called Local Visitations was a creative idea that made these fun to read. I laughed at many of them.

[Jason · Rating 5 out of 5]

Love his writing. The last chapter is all about famous authors resurrected in modern times - really fun but not gimmicky, oddly insightful.

[Mark · Rating 2 out of 5]

Read 1-3 Nov 2009. Another poet that really didn’t speak to me.
http://marklindner.info/blog/2009/12/...

[Lucian · Rating 5 out of 5]

After winning the Pulitzer, Dunn writes this amazing book, almost daring/begging every reader in America to try a book of contemporary poetry at least once.

[Catherine · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sisyphus series!