In wise and masterful poems, Stephen Dunn “reveals a deep understanding of human longing and the desire to become more than what we are” (Washington Post).Incisively capturing the oddities of our logic and the whimsies of our reason, the poems in Whereas show there is always another side to a story. With graceful rhythm and equal parts humor and seriousness, Pulitzer Prize winner Stephen Dunn examines the difficulties of telling the truth, and the...

Persuasion. Philosophers have worried about it. Political and economic actors have weaponised it. Psychologists have measured it. Prose writers have required it. We’re all subjected to it. And some have even mastered it. Of them, we are often very suspicious. Why is that? Persuasion: A Key Idea for Business and Society asks the disciplines of philosophy, politics, psychology, and prose analysis – the 4 Ps of persuasion – to answer this important question.The book is writte...

Wise and searching new poems from the winner of the 2000 Pulitzer Prize in Poetry.In his twelfth collection, his first since winning the Pulitzer Prize, Stephen Dunn turns his keen gaze on Sisyphus, our contemporary Everyman. Free, for the time being, from the power of the gods and the ceaseless weight of the rock, he struggles to navigate twenty-first-century America. In language by turns mordant and tender, often elegiac, Dunn illuminates the quotidian burdens of...

Winner of the 2001 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry.A wise and graceful new collection by one of our "major, indispensable poets" (Sidney Lea). The mysteries of Eros and Thanatos, the stubborn endurance of mind and body in the face of diminishment--these are the undercurrents of Stephen Dunn's eleventh volume. "I am interested in exploring the 'different' hours," he says, "not only of one's life, but also of the larger historical and philosophical life beyond the personal...

“A sly, companionable collection” (New York Times Book Review) that offers indispensable truths from a master of contemporary poetry.In this meditative and incisive collection, Pulitzer Prize winner Stephen Dunn draws on themes of morality and mortality to explore the innermost machinations of human nature. Shifting in tone but never wavering in their essential honesty, these poems reflect on desire, restraint, and the roles we play in an ever-evolving soc...

"Here is the mature work of a poet who has always managed to delight—but who now demands something more of us. He asks us to enter the twenty-first century with open eyes: attentive to the past, eager for the future, naming what we love."--Judith Kitchen, Georgia Review

**“An indispensable volume.” —Ron Charles, Washington Post Book ClubA radiant celebration of Pulitzer Prize–winning poet Stephen Dunn’s enduring oeuvre.**Hailed as "indispensable" (David Wojahn), Pulitzer Prize–winning poet Stephen Dunn masterfully shifts between the metaphysical and the ironic, never wavering in his essential honesty. His graceful poems confront our contradictions with tenderness and wit, enliven the ordinary with penetrating observation, and aler...

“A wonderful example of the poet’s ability to satisfy readers and anticipate their thoughts.”—Elizabeth Lund, Washington PostIn his sixteenth collection, Stephen Dunn continues to bring his imagination and intelligence to what Wallace Stevens calls “the problems of the normal,” which of course pervade most of our lives. The poem “Don’t Do That” opens with the lines: “It was bring-your-own if you wanted anything / hard, so I brought Johnnie Walker Red / alo...

“[Stephen Dunn] has taken his place among our major, indispensable poets.”—Miami HeraldIn his seventeenth collection of poetry, Pulitzer Prize winner Stephen Dunn confronts the lines we fight against and the ones we draw for ourselves. Lines of Defense poignantly captures the absurdities of modern life, expectations derailed, the lived life juxtaposed to the imagined life, and the defenses we don to make do. The poems in Lines of Defense ...

"Between Angels affirms what we are capable of in our best moments—grace, tenderness, love—while acknowledging that the human heart can be merciless. It's a book of great breadth."--Gregory Djanikian, Philadelphia Inquirer

An evocation of beauty's often-surprising manifestations; even 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 new love, with its attendant pleasures and questioning. The title poem, perhaps emblematic of the book as a whole, is evocative of beauty's o...

"This Astaire-like glide through our not-so-idle talk is a pleasure."—Publishers WeeklyStephen Dunn experiments with short, related pieces that play off each other in the manner of jazz improvisations. The resulting pairs cover such subjects as "Scruples/Saints," "Hypocrisy/Precision," and "Anger/Generosity." The wisdom and startling turns we've come to expect from Dunn are everywhere in the ninety miniatures (forty-five pairs) that comprise this volume.