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Full of Lust and Good Usage
Book by Dunn, Stephen
- GenresPoetry
Paperback
First published August 1, 1997
23 people want to read
About the author
Stephen Dunn
97 books132 followersStephen 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.
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.
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August 2, 2011“the ordinary loveliness of this world”
So Stephen Dunn accidentally describes his own book of poems, Full of Lust and Good Usage. A forerunner of the poets of the everyday—of whom Collins and Hoagland are the current high priests—Dunn wields the imagery of the Midwest, in all of its exposed sprawl and tumble. His language is that of the layman, but where other poets of the simple word so easily revert to a sort of egocentricity, Dunn takes special care to extend his focus beyond the internal—his poems speak the monologues of others: Wisconsin liars, the man of the prairie, a couple joyously caught in a world of carpentry and poetry. In such a way he allows us to interpret his work like the men and women he describes—taking in only their rough exteriors, or discovering the beautiful desolation hidden in a truck stop at some ungodly hour of the American night.
So Stephen Dunn accidentally describes his own book of poems, Full of Lust and Good Usage. A forerunner of the poets of the everyday—of whom Collins and Hoagland are the current high priests—Dunn wields the imagery of the Midwest, in all of its exposed sprawl and tumble. His language is that of the layman, but where other poets of the simple word so easily revert to a sort of egocentricity, Dunn takes special care to extend his focus beyond the internal—his poems speak the monologues of others: Wisconsin liars, the man of the prairie, a couple joyously caught in a world of carpentry and poetry. In such a way he allows us to interpret his work like the men and women he describes—taking in only their rough exteriors, or discovering the beautiful desolation hidden in a truck stop at some ungodly hour of the American night.
August 29, 2013
Re-reading some of my favorite poetry books. This is early Dunn, pre-Pulitzer, and still shimmers. He says groovy things like this, "I want to let myself drift/out of control, toward him,/toward the dumb, childish universe/where you open a door and walk in/and no one's there except yourself/and you say hello and see if you can survive."
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews