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Comprised of ironic, unsentimental poems on subjects of everyday life, Poems is the 57th volume of the Yale Series of Younger Poets. The first of seven books of poetry published during Dugan’s lifetime, Poems examines the unusual details of everyday subjects, including waterfalls, house plants, love, war, religion, and the Irish. Explorations inevitably arouse feelings of alienation, defeat, despair, and disenchantment. The poems are also marked by casual humor, mockery, and satire, which produce some of its strongest effects. The tone and style on display in this first book characterize all of Dugan’s subsequent poetry Frontmatter -- Foreword -- Contents -- This Morning Here -- On an East Wind from the Wars -- On an Old Advertisement and After a Photograph by Alfred Stieglitz -- Philodendron -- Imperial Song for Warmth -- Prison Song -- The So-called Wild Horses of the Water -- Landfall -- Sixteen Lines on Marching -- Love Song: I and Thou -- The Natural Enemies of the Conch -- Importation of Landscapes -- Portrait -- Oasis -- What Happened? What Do You Expect? -- On Hurricane Jackson -- Poem -- The Branches of Water or Desire -- Memorial Service for the Invasion Beach Where the Vacation in the Flesh Is Over -- Portrait -- Mockery Against the Irish Censorship -- Weeds as Partial Survivors -- The Mirror Perilous -- Letter to Eve -- Against France: On the Algerian Pleasures of Entity -- Funeral Oration for a Mouse -- I. Enigma: Calm: Addressed to the Air -- II. Comment on I -- How We Heard the Name -- Morning Song -- Orpheus -- Tribute to Kafka for Someone Taken -- Notes Toward a Spring Offensive -- Transcribed Conversation in Praise of Cows -- Actual Vision of Morning's Extrusion -- Life Comparison -- Cooled Heels Lament Against Frivolity, the Mask of Despair -- On Being Unhappily in Love with Reason -- Portrait from the Infantry -- On an Architect -- Letter to Donald Fall -- Thesis, Antithesis, and Nostalgia -- Triptych -- General Prothalamion for Wartimes -- On the Elk, Unwitnessed -- Grace for Thursday -- Stutterer -- Holiday -- On the Supposed Immorality of Orchids -- Memories of Verdun -- Wall, Cave, and Pillar Statements, After Asoka
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