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Stephen Dunn

Stephen Dunn
Matt Valentine

Stephen Dunn

Born: 24 June 1939 • Died: '2021'

Poet Stephen Dunn was born on June 24, 1939 in New York City. The first of his family to go to college, Dunn earned a BA from Hofstra University on a basketball scholarship and later worked in advertising. Dunn attended the New School and earned an MA in creative writing from Syracuse University, where he studied with Philip Booth, Donald Justice, and W.D. Snodgrass. Dunn was the author of numerous books of poetry, including Pagan Virtues (2019); Keeper of Limits (2015); Lines of Defense (2014); Here and Now (2011); What Goes On: New and Selected Poems 1995-2009; Different Hours (2000), which won the Pulitzer Prize; Loosestrife (1996); Landscape at the End of the Century (1991); and the National Poetry Series Prize-winning Local Time (1986). His works of prose include Degrees of Fidelity: Essays on Poetry and the Latitudes of the Personal (2018), Walking Light: Essays and Memoirs (reissued 2001), and Riffs and Reciprocities: Prose Pairs (1998). (Source)

Poems by Stephen Dunn

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I Come Home Wanting To Touch Everyone by Stephen Dunn

March 17, 2026
“but tonight the body-hungers have sent out / their long-range signals” — Stephen Dunn
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What by Stephen Dunn

June 9, 2014
“but tonight the body-hungers have sent out / their long-range signals” — Stephen Dunn
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Salvation by Stephen Dunn

February 19, 2013
“but tonight the body-hungers have sent out / their long-range signals” — Stephen Dunn
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What They Wanted by Stephen Dunn

October 12, 2011
"I told them: find out who you are / before you die." – Stephen Dunn
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Slant by Stephen Dunn

August 27, 2011
"I felt I'd been invited / into the actual, someplace / between the real and the real." – Jeffrey McDaniel
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The Vanishings by Stephen Dunn

July 30, 2011
"everything you retrieve is your past, / everything you let go goes to memory's out-box" – Stephen Dunn
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The Waiting by Stephen Dunn

June 4, 2011
"My body was an ache, a silence. / It could not affirm how long it had waited for you." — Stephen Dunn
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Traveling by Stephen Dunn

February 6, 2011
"There will soon be company." — Stephen Dunn
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Each From Different Heights by Stephen Dunn

August 31, 2010
“sometimes even the false is tender. / I am astounded by the various kisses we're capable of.” — Stephen Dunn
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Poem For People That Are Understandably Too Busy To Read Poetry by Stephen Dunn

August 11, 2007
"I don't know what music this poem / can come up with, but clearly / it's needed." — Stephen Dunn
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Sixty by Stephen Dunn

August 11, 2007
"A heart is to be spent. As for me, I'll share / my mulcher with anyone who needs to mulch." — Stephen Dunn
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Tiger Face by Stephen Dunn

August 11, 2007
"Because you can be what you're not / for only so long," — Stephen Dunn
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I Come Home Wanting To Touch Everyone by Stephen Dunn

December 31, 2006
"everything, everyone is intelligible / in the language of touch" — Stephen Dunn
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Sweetness by Stephen Dunn

September 3, 2005
"I acknowledge there is no sweetness / that doesn't leave a stain, / no sweetness that's ever sufficiently sweet..." – Stephen Dunn