On Hurricane Jackson

By Alan Dugan 1923–2003 Alan Dugan

Now his nose’s bridge is broken, one eye

will not focus and the other is a stray;

trainers whisper in his mouth while one ear

listens to itself, clenched like a fist;

generally shadowboxing in a smoky room,

his mind hides like the aching boys

who lost a contest in the Panhellenic games

and had to take the back roads home,

but someone else, his perfect youth,

laureled in newsprint and dollar bills,

triumphs forever on the great white way

to the statistical Sparta of the champs.

Source: Poems Seven: New and Complete Poetry (Seven Stories Press, 2001)

Biography

First books, especially volumes of verse, are often relegated to obscurity, but Alan Dugan's Poems was greeted with enthusiasm. Philip Booth saluted Poems as "the most original first book that has appeared on any publisher's poetry list in a sad long time," and the awards the book later received bore out Booth's appraisal. Poems was awarded the National Book Award in 1961 and the Pulitzer Prize. Many commentators felt that Dugan . . .

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