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2:35 p.m., March 7, 2003--Pulitzer-prize winning poet Stephen Dunn spoke on the conventionalities of poetry and manners, as well as the meanings of grace Thursday evening, March 6, to kick off the Du Pont Scholars Spring Semester Lecture Series.
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| Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Stephen Dunn |
Dunn’s book “Different Hours” was the 2001 Pulitzer Prize-winner for poetry. His other honors include the American Academy of Poets’ 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 is currently a distinguished professor of creative writing and a trustee fellow in the arts at Richard Stockton College of New Jersey.
Dunn's presentation, entitled "Toward Grace and a Redefinition of Manners; How Some Poems Might Show the Way," offered a historical perspective on poetry and how the art's conventionalities have changed throughout the past 40 years.
"We need to correct the lack of vigor in free verse," he said. "We do see a great deal of sloppy poetry which exists in a sloppy world. And this world gets crazier as the days go on."
Dunn said the 1960s were notable for the many "anti-" poems that dominated the age, and in the same thread, poets lashed out against repression.
"In the ‘60s repression was a dirty word," he said, "but repression as we know it can be good for language. It makes us resort to fable or parable. We might have to be ingenious under its hold."
The 1970s could be summed up as a decade of "surrealism without vision and right-mindedness without reality," Dunn said. Poetry was affected by the belief that rationality was the smoke screen of the powerful, he said.
The 1980s, on the other hand, took a turn toward indifference and selfishness for two reasons, he said: technology and Reaganism.
"I saw the Walkman as a symbol of the decade," Dunn said. "A single person with headphones listening to music that no one else can hear. Still, there were people hungry for poetry—what technology could not offer."
Dunn focused on the various meanings and implications of the word "grace" to frame the conventionalities of poetry in a current sense. He said the common uses of the word, such as "saving graces," "gracing someone with your presence" and "grace periods," stray far from its true meanings.
From Latin, grace traditionally means, "to favor" or "give thanks," and the modern-day French translates to "to pardon."
"We live in a graceless age, as well as an age without decorum," Dunn said. "The word is nearly unbearable, nearly dead. Its common day uses rarely compel us to honor its meaning. Our daily encounters and shows like Jerry Springer crave grace.
"An artist is a god of very small universes. True grace often comes from pen, brush, camera and body."
Dunn's speech was the first in a series of public lectures sponsored by the Du Pont Scholars. This semester's series is entitled "Passing the Torch: An Interdisciplinary Look at a World Poised for Change." Next week's speaker is Linda Greenhouse, New York Times reporter for the Supreme Court. Her speech, "Court-watching: How to be a Smart Observer of the United States Supreme Court," will be presented at 7:30 p.m., Thursday, March 13, in Room 120 of Smith Hall. For more information on this and other lectures in the series, call 831-1195.
Article by Amie Voith, AS 2003
Photo by Duane Perry
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