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How We Heard the Name

By Alan Dugan 1923–2003 Alan Dugan

The river brought down

dead horses, dead men

and military debris,

indicative of war

or official acts upstream,

but it went by, it all

goes by, that is the thing

about the river. Then

a soldier on a log

went by. He seemed drunk

and we asked him Why

had he and this junk

come down to us so

from the past upstream.

“Friends,” he said, “the great

Battle of Granicus

has just been won

by all of the Greeks except

the Lacedaemonians and

myself: this is a joke

between me and a man

named Alexander, whom

all of you ba-bas

will hear of as a god.”

Alan Dugan, “How We Heard the Name” from Poems Seven: New and Complete Poetry. Copyright © 2001 by Alan Dugan. Reprinted with the permission of
Seven Stories Press.

Source: Poetry (February 1960).

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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