Stephen Dunn

Stephen Elliot Dunn (June 24, 1939 – June 24, 2021) was an American poet and educator who authored twenty-one collections of poetry. He won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry for his 2001 collection, Different Hours, and received an Academy Award in Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. He also won three National Endowment for the Arts Creative Writing Fellowships, Guggenheim Fellowship, and Rockefeller Foundations Fellowship.

Dunn was born in Forest Hills, Queens, New York on June 24, 1939. His parents were Ellen (Fleishman) and Charles Dunn. He attended Forest Hills High School, where he played basketball. After graduating in 1957, he studied history at Hofstra University. He played guard for its basketball team and was part of the squad that had a 23–1 record during the 1959–60 season. He was nicknamed "Radar" for his ability to make jump shots.

Dunn graduated from Hofstra University in 1962 and went on to play one season for the Williamsport Billies of the Eastern Basketball Association. He then worked in advertising until he was 26, when he traveled to Spain to pen a novel, which he ended up discarding. He subsequently undertook postgraduate studies at Syracuse University, obtaining a master's degree in creative writing in 1970.

Dunn began teaching at Stockton University in 1974 and published his first full-length collection entitled Looking for Holes in the Ceiling that same year. He continued working at Stockton for approximately three decades, and also taught at Wichita State University, University of Washington, Columbia University, University of Michigan, and Princeton University.[10]

A collection of essays about Dunn's poetry was published in 2013.[11] He finished his last book, The Not Yet Fallen World, shortly before his death. Published in May 2022, nearly a year after his passing,[12] it was viewed by Dunn as the best work he had written.

Dunn married his first wife, Lois Kelly, in 1964. Together, they had two children: Susanne and Andrea. They divorced in 2001. He married Barbara Hurd the following year.

Dunn had earlier lived in Port Republic, New Jersey. He later resided at homes in Ocean City, New Jersey, as well as Hurd's hometown of Frostburg, Maryland.[13] He died on the night of his 82nd birthday at his home in Frostburg.[12] He suffered from Parkinson's disease prior to his death.