When I threw myself into poetry as a young adult, I threw myself into Stephen Dunn. His poems were plain spoken and sometimes witty and incredibly honest. I carried his poem “A Secret Life” around in my day planner as I went to work and went about sifting through my lists and responsibilities. It ends by affirming what I suspected: “A secret life is that important.” When I learned Dunn had died, I wanted to give him a space on the curb. “Sweetness” seemed the right poem for celebrating his life and his voice.
“ Often a sweetness comes
as if on loan, stays just long enough
to make sense of what it means to be alive”
