Charles Baudelaire

Colonized with a ratty coterie
Lurking behind the discount grocery,
Strewn about with teeth and ticket stubs
Flickering under an expiring bulb,

There roams Jeffrey Dunn probing and sifting,
Grasping a metaphor in need of frisking,
Chasing the moon, captive of visions,
His tombstone etched, Sorry, Gone Fishing.

Walt Whitman

Although I wrote this about myself, no truer words have ever been said about one Jeffrey Dunn. I should know. Being dead, I’ve been everywhere, man. I’ve been everywhere.

Self-reliant, with haughty eyes, assuming to himself all the attributes of his country, steps Jeffrey Dunn into literature, talking like a man unaware that there was ever hitherto such a production as a book, or such a being as a writer. Every move of him has the free play of the muscle of one who never knew what it was to feel that he stood in the presence of a superior. Every word that falls from his mouth shows silent disdain and defiance of the old theories and forms. Every phrase announces new laws; not once do his lips unclose except in conformity with them.

Richard Brautigan

I can’t say that I’ve met the man, but after talking with The Grand Old Trout, I’ve gathered that Jeffrey Dunn’s poetry is all watched over by machines of loving grace.