172 Poetry for Students

the so-called Iron Curtain of Soviet influence fol-

lowing World War II, revolted against Soviet op-

pression. The United States, though sympathetic,

could do nothing but watch and protest uselessly

as Soviet tanks rolled in to crush the rebellion. A

little more than a decade later, the same thing hap-

pened in Czechloslovakia. Similar scenarios were

enacted in Vietnam, Afghanistan, and countless

other hot spots around the world before the col-

lapse of the Soviet Union in the 1980s and early

1990s.

On the domestic front in 1956, the President

of the United States was Dwight D. Eisenhower, a

hero of World War II. Dugan surely had Eisen-

hower, the recent conflict in Korea (ended by cease

fire in June 1953), and current events in Hungary

very much in mind while writing “How We Heard

the Name.” The quick expansion, and even quicker

collapse, of Alexander’s empire serves as a warn-

ing to Americans and Soviets who see their histor-

ical situation as unique, and the ultimate victory of

their cause as inevitable.

Critical Overview

Despite the unusually enthusiastic critical response

to Dugan’s first poetry collection, Poems(1961),

critics have since been far more stinting, in their

praise. Poet Robert Pinsky says of Dugan that he

writes “with great comedy and sensitivity” about

ordinary things. Most critics agree. X. J. Kennedy,

for example, describes Dugan’s style as “a plain

stodgy no-nonsense American prose, like that of

your nearest bartender.” Critics are also united in

identifying a fierce and unapologetically pes-

simistic sense of irony as the driving force of

Dugan’s poetry. R. J. Mills writes that Dugan’s

strongest poetic effects are achieved “through

mockery, invective, sudden reversal, and expo-

sure.” Other critics, such as Richard Ellman and

Robert O’Clair, in The Norton Anthology of Mod-

ern Poetry,point to Dugan’s lonely and idiosyn-

cratic voice: “Alan Dugan is conspicuously unaf-

filiated—to other poets, to any affirmative creed,

to life itself.”

How We Heard the Name

Compare

&

Contrast

• 1956:Playing against the Brooklyn Dodgers,
  New York Yankee Don Larsen pitches the first
  perfect game in World Series competition. The
  Yankees ultimately take the Series 4 games to
  3 and become World Champions.

1958:The Brooklyn Dodgers break the hearts

of thousands of fans by moving to Los Angeles.

2000:Larsen’s remains the only perfect game

in World Series history. The Dodgers remain in

Los Angeles. The Yankees are defending World

Champions.

• 1956:Martin Luther King, Jr., is arrested in
  protests associated with the Montgomery Bus
  Boycott.

1968:Martin Luther King, Jr., is assassinated in

Memphis, Tennessee. James Earl Ray is arrested

and convicted for the killing.

1988:James Earl Ray dies in prison after years

of protesting his innocence in the face of over-

whelming evidence to the contrary. Before his

death, Dexter King, Martin Luther King, Jr.’s

son, affirms his belief that Ray is innocent and

that his father was murdered as part of a larger

conspiracy.

• 323 B.C.:Alexander the Great dies in Babylon
  after drinking too much at a party. He is 33 years
  old.
  1956: 33-year-old poet Alan Dugan writes
  “How We Heard the Name.”
  2000:Forensic examination of a skeleton found
  in a tomb in Vergina, Greece, leads archeolo-
  gists to conclude that the occupant is Alexan-
  der’s half-brother and successor, Philip III Ar-
  rhidaeus, raising the possibility that items
  discovered in the tomb once belonged to
  Alexander the Great.