Discovering Stephen Dunn

By Eve Lyons

Finding a new poet is like finding
a new route to work: Faster, less traffic,
perhaps more scenic.
Something new to quiet the din
and slow you down.
You feel so pleased with yourself,
you can feel a small lump softening happily
in the pit of your stomach.
You can’t wait to mail off a letter,
telling your friend who lovingly excerpted
this brave new voice,
which was always there
waiting for you to find,
how you sat crammed between books and
the aisles of people breathing life into them,
Thumbing through pages,
looking for that one poem that wooed you,
but being seduced by others along the way.
Feeling them inside you for hours after.
The best part is the new creation that comes from this,
the awkward birth of language.
You have to pull over
in the hot sun with a cup of coffee
and your new friend
just to write it down.


Published in Barbaric Yawp, June 2002