Stephen Dobyns

Stephen Dobyns. Courtesy American Poems.

Stephen J. Dobyns (born February 19, 1941) is an American poet and novelist.

Life

Was born on February 19, 1941 in Orange, New Jersey, to Lester L. Dobyns, a minister, and Barbara Johnston, and raised in New Jersey, Michigan, Virginia, and Pennsylvania. He was educated at Shimer College, graduated from Wayne State University, and received an MFA from the Iowa Writers' Workshop at the University of Iowa in 1967. He has worked as a reporter for the Detroit News.

He has taught at various academic institutions, including Sarah Lawrence College, the Warren Wilson College MFA Program for Writers, the University of Iowa, Syracuse University, and Boston University.

In 1995, as a professor of English at Syracuse University, he was involved in a sexual discrimination harrassement scandal, for allegedly making a comment to a female student about her breasts. Francine Prose defended him by portraying his accuser and the school as having reacted to outdated neo-Victorian victim-feminism policies.

Writing

In much of his poetry and some works of non-genre fiction, Dobyns employs extended tropes, using the ridiculous and the absurd as vehicles to introduce more profound meditations on life, love, and art. He shies neither from the low nor from the sublime, and all in a straightforward narrative voice of reason. His journalistic training has strongly informed this voice.

For example, in the poem "Missed Chances" in Cemetery Nights, the nameless speaker wanders through a metaphorical city in which those who missed their big opportunities futilely rehearse for opportunity's next arrival.

Dobyns has written many detective stories about a private detective named Charlie Bradshaw who works out of Saratoga Springs in upstate New York. Bradshaw is unusual as a private eye protagonist, an ordinary man who was once a police officer. All the books have the word "Saratoga" in the title.

In his comic novel The Wrestler's Cruel Study, the protagonist roams through a modern cityscape governed by fairy-tale rituals, searching for his missing fiancée. He is alternately aided or hindered by a Friedrich Nietzsche -quoting manager and his Hegelian nemesis, to find that his wrestling matches are choreographed by a shadowy organization that enacts their various Gnostic theological debates through the pageantry and panoply of the ring. He eventually learns to resolve his own dualistic nature and determine who he is despite the role he plays.

The Church of Dead Girls is a novel about a small town's hysterical response to the mysterious disappearance of three of its teenaged girls.

Boy in the Water is a novel about events in a secluded private school in the United States.

Recognition

His poetic works count among them the 1971 Lamont Poetry Selection (Concurring Beasts), a National Poetry Series award winner (Black Dog, Red Dog), and a Melville Cane Award winner (Cemetery Nights).

Cold Dog Soup has been made into 2 films, the American Cold Dog Soup and the French Doggy Bag. Two Deaths of Señora Puccini has been made into the film Two Deaths. The movie Wild Turkey is based on one of his short stories.

Publications

Poetry

• Concurring Beasts: Poems. New York: Atheneum, 1972.
• Griffon: Poems. New York: Atheneum, 1976.
• Heat Death: Poems. New York: Atheneum, 1980.
• The Balthus Poems. New York: Atheneum, 1982.
• Black Dog, Red Dog: Poems. New York: Holt, Rinehart, & Winston, 1984. ISBN 0-03-071077-4
• Cemetery Nights: Poems. New York: Viking, 1987. ISBN 0-14-058584-2
• Body Traffic: Poems. New York: Viking, 1990.
• Velocities: New and selected poems, 1966-1992. New York: Viking, 1994 ISBN 0-14-058651-2; Newcastle upon Tyne, UK: Bloodaxe, 1994.
• Common Carnage. New York: Penguin, 1996.
• Pallbearers Envying the One Who Rides. New York: Penguin, 1999. ISBN 0-14-058916-3
• The Porcupine's Kisses. New York: Penguin, 2002.
• Mystery, So Long. New York: Penguin, 2005.
• Winter's Journey. Port Townsend, WA: Copper Canyon Press, 2010.

Novels

• A Man of Little Evils. New York: Atheneum, 1973. ISBN 0-689-10567-3
• Dancer With One Leg. New York: Dutton, 1983.
• Cold Dog Soup. New York: Viking, 1985.
• A Boat Off the Coast. New York: Viking, 1987.
• The Two Deaths of Senora Puccini. New York: Viking, 1988. ISBN 0-14-023579-5
• The House on Alexandrine. Detroit, MI: Wayne State University Press, 1990. ISBN 0-8143-2183-6
• After Shocks, Near Escapes. New York: Viking, 1991.
• The Wrestler's Cruel Study. New York: Norton, 1993. ISBN 0-393-03511-5
• The Church of Dead Girls: A novel. New York: Metropolitan Books, 1997. ISBN 0-8050-5103-1
• Boy in the Water: A novel. New York: Metropolitan Books, 1999. ISBN 0-312-97522-8
• The Burn Palace: A novel. New York: Blue Rider Press, 2013.

Charlie Bradshaw series

• Saratoga Longshot. New York: Atheneum, 1976. ISBN 0-14-025196-0
• Saratoga Swimmer. New York: Atheneum, 1981.
• Saratoga Headhunter. New York: Viking, 1985. ISBN 0-14-015606-2
• Saratoga Snapper. New York: Viking, 1986. ISBN 0-670-81059-2
• Saratoga Bestiary. New York: Viking, 1988. ISBN 0-670-82024-5
• Saratoga Hexameter. New York: Viking, 1990.
• Saratoga Haunting. New York: Viking, 1993.
• Saratoga Backtalk. New York: Viking, 1994. ISBN 0-393-03659-6
• Saratoga Fleshpot. New York: Viking, 1995. ISBN 0-393-03805-X
• Saratoga Trifecta. New York: Penguin, 1995.
• Saratoga Strongbox: A Charlie Bradshaw mystery. New York: Viking, 1998. ISBN 0-670-87692-5

Short fiction

• Eating Naked: Stories. New York: Metropolitan, 2000 ISBN 0-312-27829-2
  • published in UK as Eating Naked, and other stories. London: Penguin, 2000.

Nonfiction

• Best Words, Best Order: Essays on poetry. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1996.
• Next Word, Better Word: The craft of writing poetry. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011.

Except where noted, bibliographical information courtesy WorldCat.

See also

Poetry@Tech Stephen Dobyns - Part 1

• List of U.S. poets

External links

Poems

• "Loud Music" at Poetry 180
• "Thelonius Monk"
• "Do They Have a Reason?"
• Stephen Dobyns profile & 2 poems at the Academy of American Poets
• Five poems at Tufts Poetry Society
• Stephen Dobyns b. 1941 at the Poetry Foundation

Audio / video

• Stephen Dobyns at YouTube
• Stephen Dobyns at Amazon.com

About

• Interview with Stephen Dobyns
• Poetry Questions: Stephen Dobyns at The New Yorker