Poets in Port, October 26, 2007

Poets in Port featured Peter Dugan at 7:30 pm on Friday, October 26, 2007 at Caffé Portofino, 249 Main St., Northport, opposite the theatre. There was also an Open Reading.

Peter V. Dugan is a resident of East Rockaway, a graduate of The New School in New York City , a member of the Rockville Centre Poets and listed in Poets and Writers. Wysteria Ltd. published his first book length collection titled Medusa’s Overbite in 2001. He has taught poetry workshops and classes on form and style. Mr. Dugan has won local and national awards for his poetry. Some notables are an Honorable Mention by The American Academy of Poets, a 2^nd place for Farmingdale State College Raynor Wallace poetry contest, 2^nd place in the Barnes and Noble Poetry awards and a 2^nd place for the Dowling College Poetry Slam. His pieces have been published individually in recent years in Aitia, Long Island Sounds Anthology 2007, Soul Fountain, Perpetual Toxins, Good Liar, The Poet’s Art, The Five Town Forum, The Nassau Herald,the e-magazines Good Liar and Road Poet. He has also been published every year from 1997-2007 in the Long Island PPA Literary Review. He can be seen on Poetry Vlog.

My Reason

I write for those who go outside the box
and climb over the fence defying the signs,
Danger Keep Out, No Trespassing.
They are the ones who dance along
the precipice, doing pirouettes on the edge
of the abyss between the real and the ideal.
And as others have tried to bridge that chasm
with a structure made of old worm holed planks,
myth and magic tied with twine, a string
of lies, producing only an unfinished
catwalk that juts out like a diving board.


I write for those who will not take that leap
of faith, but use mortar, stone, and steel
in the here and now to span that gulf.
I write for those who live outside the lines
drawn by society, the biker, the hipster
and the burn out, those who don’t want
to live the life of the nine to five crowd,
wear stuffed shirts, a suit and tie, and be
a contestant in the rat race, running through
the maze looking for a slice of the American
Dream, that pie in the sky, that piece of cheese,
to be number one, the big cheese, a king,
an emperor, because they see the emperor
has no clothes and the cheese is Swiss
and full of holes. They see the Polly-O
String is dangling. I write for them.


I write for the musician, the artist, and the poet,
those who don’t want to go with the flow
of music. They seem to be tuned out or out
of tune but they follow a different beat.
They twist and shout, but they don’t dance
when others call the tune, or agree with
the choreography, it’s all hokey-pokey;
a big hustle to join the line and do the glide.
Call them wallflowers, I write for them.
I write for the outlaw, the outcast and the
outlandish. But they are not out of touch.
They are what they are and I am what I am.
I am a poet. I am on the outside looking in.

I write for myself.

Peter Dugan