Poetry for Students Vol. 10

Volume 10 167

Author Biography

Alan Dugan was born on February 12, 1923, in
Brooklyn, New York. He attended school in Brook-
lyn and in Queens, then he entered Queens College,
New York, in 1941. His studies were interrupted by
service in World War II. Following the war, Dugan
completed college first at Olivet College, Michigan,
then at Mexico City College, Mexico, where he re-
ceived his B.A. in English in 1949. He remained at
Mexico City College for an extra year of graduate
study before returning to New York City, where he
spent the next ten years in a variety of non-acade-
mic jobs, including publishing, advertising, and as
a model maker at a medical supply house. But he
was writing poetry all the while, and in 1961 his
first book,Poems,was published.

Poemswas selected for publication by the
prestigious Yale Series of Younger Poets. Review-
ing the book in the April 27, 1961 issue of the
Christian Science Monitor,critic Philip Booth en-
thused: “Alan Dugan’ poems make up, clearly, the
most original first book that has appeared on any
publisher’s poetry list in a sad long time. Poem by
poem, he happily defies literary pigeonholing.”
What followed was a degree of commercial and
critical success rarely matched by a first book of
poems. In 1962, the book won three major awards:

the Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Award, and

the Prix de Rome (awarded by the American Acad-

emy of Arts and Letters).

Thanks to the publicity and prize money at-

tached to these awards, Dugan was able to devote

himself more intensively to writing and traveling,

supplementing his income with teaching stints at

various colleges and universities. In 1963-64, for

example, he lived in Paris on a Guggenheim Fel-

lowship; in 1965-66, he was a guest lecturer in po-

etry at Connecticut College; and a Rockefeller

Foundation grant staked him to a year of travel

through Central and South America in 1967.

From 1967-1969, Dugan lived in Bronxville,

New York, serving as poet-in-residence at Sarah

Lawrence College. Since 1969, he has been asso-

ciated with the Fine Arts Work Center in Province-

town, Massachusetts. He has continued to receive

awards for his work: the Shelley Memorial Award

in 1982, the Melville Cane award in 1984, and the

American Academy award in 1985. His poetry ap-

pears frequently in the American Poetry Review,

Poetry,and other journals.

Poem Summary.

Lines 1-8:

The first 8 lines of the poem constitute a sin-

gle long sentence written in everyday language. Its

How We Heard the Name

Alan Dugan