Inconvenient Pleasures

Alan Dugan is not a household name, and I feel fairly confident that this is true more or less regardless of the specific literary predilections of the aforementioned household. Partially it's because he can be excessive, unsubtle, at times almost histrionic and prone to historico-literary name-dropping for the sake of novelty. All of the above are far, far out of fashion for the kind of "serious, high-minded" audience he seems to try to write for. 


But like Yevgeny Yevtushenko, another poet who shares some of that same swagger and those same vices, there's something about the poems that I keep carrying around with me. Maybe they only share the same time period during which I discovered them: when finding something significant and different from the standard canonical run-of-the-mill poetry being thrown at me in school was as monumental a discovery as the kingdom of Prester John. 


But whatever the case, as with so many of my passions and objects of affection from that time in my life, I can't seem to let it go. 


Here's one that's a little facile for my tastes as they currently are, but still part of the luggage I take with me.

Tribute to Kafka for Someone Taken

Alan Dugan

The party is going strong. 
The doorbell rings. It's 
for someone named me. 
I'm coming. I take 
a last drink, a last 
puff on a cigarette, 
a last kiss at a girl, 
and step into the hall, 
bang, 
shutting out the laughter. "Is 
your name you?" "Yes." 
"Well come along then." 
"See here. See here. See here."