Alan Dugan

Alan Dugan Poems

1.

I know but will not tell
you, Aunt Irene, why there
are soap suds in the whiskey:
Uncle Robert had to have
...

Oh I got up and went to work
and worked and came back home
and ate and talked and went to sleep.
Then I got up and went to work
...

The trees in time
have something else to do
besides their treeing. What is it.
I'm a starving to death
...

Nothing is plumb, level, or square:
the studs are bowed, the joists
are shaky by nature, no piece fits
any other piece without a gap
...

Now his nose’s bridge is broken, one eye
will not focus and the other is a stray;
trainers whisper in his mouth while one ear
...

6.

After your first poetry reading
I shook hands with you
and got a hard-on. Thank you.
We know that old trees
...

The skin ripples over my body like moon-wooed water,
rearing to escape me. Where could it find another
...

Because of the unaccountable spirit of the troops
oh we were marched as we were never marched before
...

In order to perfect all readers
the statements should he carved
on rock walls, on cave walls,
and on the sides of pillars so
...

Once, one of my students read a book we had.
She was doing a history assignment on
the decline and fall of the Roman Empire
...

The river brought down
dead horses, dead men
and military debris,
indicative of war
...

Who knows whether the sea heals or corrodes?
The wading, wintered pack-beasts of the feet
...

Speciously individual
like a solid piece of spit
floating in a cuspidor
I dream of free bravery
...

“If you work a body of water and a body of woman
you can take fish out of one and children out of the other
...

The old wound in my ass
has opened up again, but I
...

I live inside of a machine
or machines. Every time one
goes off another starts. Why
don’t I go outside and sleep
...

The first and last time I met
my ex-lover Anne Sexton was at
a protest poetry reading against
some anti-constitutional war in Asia
...

18.

God, I need a job because I need money.
Here the world is, enjoyable with whiskey,
women, ultimate weapons, and class!
...

My mother never heard of Freud
and she decided as a little girl
that she would call her husband Dick
no matter what his first name was
...

Alan Dugan Biography

Alan Dugan was an American poet. His poetry is known for its plain and direct language, though it is supported by technical skill; it is generally trenchant and ironic in its criticism of American life and received ideas, and in its frank sensuality alike. Dugan grew up in Jamaica, Queens in New York City and served in World War II, experiences which entered his poetry though he avoided simple autobiography or confession. He later lived in Truro on Cape Cod in Massachusetts, where he directed the Fine Arts Work Center and was a mentor and teacher to younger poets for decades. Dugan's work was published in successive numbered collections under the simple title Poems. Alan Dugan was married to the artist Judith Shahn. He died on September 3, 2003, of pneumonia at age 80.)

The Best Poem Of Alan Dugan

Elegy

I know but will not tell
you, Aunt Irene, why there
are soap suds in the whiskey:
Uncle Robert had to have
A drink while shaving.

Alan Dugan Comments

Percy Dovetonsils 27 January 2012

I want to add this superb poem by Alan Dugan, but can't figure out how to do it.... Morning Song by Alan Dugan Look, it's morning and a little water gurgles in the tap. I wake up waiting, because it's Sunday, and turn twice more than usual in bed, before I rise to cereal and comic strips. I have risen to the morning danger and feel proud, and after shaving off the night's disguises, after searching close to the bone for blood, and finding only a little, I shall walk out bravely into the daily accident.

3 1 Reply

Alan Dugan Popularity

Alan Dugan Popularity

Close
Error Success