Pagan Virtues
Poems
11 January 2022
Description
"A sly, companionable collection” (The 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 society. A stunning sequence on the relationship between the speaker and “Mrs. Cavendish” examines an intimacy sustained and repelled by politics, philosophy and attraction.
Wide-ranging, intellectually daring and wry, Pagan Virtues reminds us of Dunn’s penetrating eye for the universal and the specific, and his ability to highlight our contradictions with tenderness and wit.
Reviews
"With these wise, late-life poems, Stephen Dunn has given us a new collection that shows us how ‘loving / is an achievement, a constancy of renewal.’" — Margaret Gibson, author of Broken Cup
"For intelligence, soul, wit, honesty, and courage, so many of us cherish the work of Stephen Dunn. In our ruined nation and on our dying planet, we need his poems more than ever." — David Huddle, author of Dream Sender
"Pagan Virtues is Stephen Dunn at his best—and Dunn’s best is about as good as it gets." — —David Wojahn, author of Interrogation Palace
"Over a rich, long career dedicated to poetry, one of Dunn’s greatest honesties has been in refusing to look away from our dishonesties—both personal and political—and his new book is another wise study in the truths and half-truths we present to the world." — Albert Goldbarth, author of The Kitchen Sink
Also By: Stephen Dunn 
The Not Yet Fallen World: New and Selected Poems
Paperback, 2024
A radiant celebration of Pulitzer Prize–winning poet Stephen Dunn’s enduring oeuvre
The Not Yet Fallen World: New and Selected Poems
Hardback, 2022
A radiant celebration of Pulitzer Prize–winning poet Stephen Dunn’s enduring oeuvre.
The Not Yet Fallen World: New and Selected Poems
E Book, 2022
“An indispensable volume.” —Ron Charles, Washington Post Book Club
A radiant celebration of Pulitzer Prize–winning poet Stephen Dunn’s enduring oeuvre.
Whereas: Poems
Paperback, 2019
Pulitzer Prize winner Stephen Dunn examines the difficulties of telling the truth, and the fictions with which we choose to live.
Whereas: Poems
E Book, 2017
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).
