Pulitzer Prize Poetry Winner

Different Hours

by Stephen Dunn

Summary

Dunn meditates on middle age, marriage, and the small moral compromises that accumulate over a life. His voice is plainspoken and reflective, favoring clarity and wry self-examination over ornament or obscurity. The collection offers a quietly philosophical accounting of the ordinary, treating domestic experience as a fit subject for serious thought.

Historical Context & Significance

Dunn was praised for a lucid style that avoided the dense obscurities of much academic poetry.