Joanne’s post about political poems reminded me of the first Alan Dugan poem I encountered, in my junior year of high school. It was On an East Wind from the Wars and remains one of my favorite of favorites.

And when I think of Alan Dugan, I often think of Jack Gilbert, who is of the same generation, whose work I also first encountered in high school, and whose The Abnormal Is Not Courage is also a touchstone poem (I’ve copied or typed it out for friends on at least two occasions, and used it for a reading at a Unitarian Universalist service).

There is a Wikipedia entry devoted to the east wind. I am inordinately amused by this.