Signed Poetry Books - Douglas Dunn

It was decided over dinner at Oxford that Douglas Dunn would have been a bigger name if Tony Harrison had not been there in his way, and so would Michael Longley had it not been for Heaney.

It wasn't quite so much 'decided' as John Sears made the point and I had to agree. But there are worse things than not being the standard bearer of a generation and Douglas Dunn is a worthy and redoubtable poet and the world would benefit from having more poets like him rather than congratulating him for having a reputation that survived in the shadow of others who were considered somehow greater.

If his Elegies are to remain his best remembered work then Dante's Drum-kit, Northlight and The Year's Afternoon show that he was a genuine artist, one whose work continued to improve and not one who established a reputation with an early book and then tried to continue repeating its success. That is one way I've sometimes differentiated between a class act and a one-trick pony.