The Insistence of Beauty Poems Author:Stephen Dunn An evocation of beauty's often-surprising manifestationseven in the face of tragedy. — "Beauty isn't nice. Beauty isn't fair " So, in part, states an epigraph for this stunning new collection, his thirteenth, by the Pulitzer Prize winner for Poetry (2000). First traversing betrayal and loss, Stephen Dunn then moves to speak of n... more »ew love, with its attendant pleasures and questioning. The title poem, perhaps emblematic of the book as a whole, is evocative of beauty's often surprising manifestationseven in the light of tragedyas on that terrible day "when those silver planes came out of the perfect blue."
Because beauty jars us, makes us look twice, it is as startling as a good poem, and as insistent. Fortunately, it is never too late to search for the right words for what we've seen, felt, endured. With quiet authority Dunn enacts what it feels like to be a particular man at a particular juncture of his lifestruggling not to deny, but to name, then rename.« less