Edward Dorn

Edward Dorn

Edward Dorn,

The gunslinger,

The wiry poet,

The ear-mouth,

Regurgitating realities in one line

So simply complex in rhetoric,

With discernibly comedic extravagance.

Dorn posits that in our contemporary society, we use language as an end itself, rather than a means. “Waking up in the morning is political,” a clear reference to how often the society we live in was on his mind. When you think of a typical poem, you think of love songs and passionate emotions. Yet Dorn was a creator of intellectual poetry, such as his NASDAQ poem, a parody of truncated language, “confess and than accuse.” Dorn frequently would recess into a world where emotions, mindsets and character traits are likened to portals, “slam the door of paranoia.” Even in his final years, he couldn’t help but make a mockery out of his death sentence by referring to the cancer in his pancreas as “my faithful companion.”

Perhaps the most interesting aspect of the Edward Dorn poetry reading was the slew of Edward Dorn enthusiasts. The upheavals of the 1960’s are not yet ancient history. Claudia, the tattooed “letters of correspondence” presenter, read the letters between Leroy and Edward as if they transpired ages ago, yet Leroy was in attendance. People from the era are still well alive, able to relay who Dorn was and what his contributions encompassed. You come away from the poetry reading with a true sense of who he was and the impact that he had on those he confided in.