All About the Poet
New York native, Stephen Dunn was born in 1939 and the first of his family to attend college. In 1962, Dunn received his bachelors in History from Hofstra University while on a basketball scholarship. Continuing his education, he attended the New School Writing Workshops from 1964 to 1966 and in 1970 he received his Masters of Art in Creative Writing from Syracuse University. Since 1974, Dunn has been a Distinguished Professor of Creative Writing at Richard Stockton College in New Jersey. He is also well known for his visits to well known and prestigious universities such as The University of Michigan, The University of Washington, NYU, and Columbia. Dunn is known for his numerous works of poetry, few of which have won the National Poetry Series Prize as well as the Pulitzer Prize.
New York native, Stephen Dunn was born in 1939 and the first of his family to attend college. In 1962, Dunn received his bachelors in History from Hofstra University while on a basketball scholarship. Continuing his education, he attended the New School Writing Workshops from 1964 to 1966 and in 1970 he received his Masters of Art in Creative Writing from Syracuse University. Since 1974, Dunn has been a Distinguished Professor of Creative Writing at Richard Stockton College in New Jersey. He is also well known for his visits to well known and prestigious universities such as The University of Michigan, The University of Washington, NYU, and Columbia. Dunn is known for his numerous works of poetry, few of which have won the National Poetry Series Prize as well as the Pulitzer Prize.
Analysis of "Sweetness" Sweetness is but a brief taste of happiness. Sweetness comes to us, leaves an imprint on our hearts and disappears as to never occurred. Throughout life we constantly avoid the ugly face of tragedy. Tragedy is the stain that is left when the sweetness lingers away. It seems that while in the midst of happiness their is a dark fog that is slowly creeping up to destroy what happiness was present. Perhaps the greatest line in the poem is, "Often a sweetness comes as if on loan". You embrace the present being of sweetness, but soon left with the results when it is taken away. The roller coaster of life is filled with constant tastes of sweetness, something that tastes so good, but the bitterness and tragedies of the world are so cruel to take it away. The sweetness lingers as memories when the dark fog takes over. |
Sweetness
Just when it has seemed I couldn’t bear one more friend waking with a tumor, one more maniac with a perfect reason, often a sweetness has come and changed nothing in the world except the way I stumbled through it, for a while lost in the ignorance of loving someone or something, the world shrunk to mouth-size, hand-size, and never seeming small. I acknowledge there is no sweetness that doesn’t leave a stain, no sweetness that’s ever sufficiently sweet .... Tonight a friend called to say his lover was killed in a car he was driving. His voice was low and guttural, he repeated what he needed to repeat, and I repeated the one or two words we have for such grief until we were speaking only in tones. Often a sweetness comes as if on loan, stays just long enough to make sense of what it means to be alive, then returns to its dark source. As for me, I don’t care where it’s been, or what bitter road it’s traveled to come so far, to taste so good. |
Believe it or not, Stephen Dunn was a college athlete! Basketball player turned poet! I guess some people do have it all!
"What basketball and poetry have in common," he writes, "is that they each provide opportunities to be better than yourself — opportunities for transcendence." -Stephen Dunn