Ed Dorn is one of the most clear-minded and consistently serious poets in the contemporary scene. A firm conviction that underlies his work is the belief that because the New World of the North American continent offers to the poet a new set of materials, a new set of possibilities for poetry becomes available to him. If he is aware of that truth, he will refuse "look[ing] back as the sluggish beast europe / at a residue of what was merely heaped up." Rather, Dorn suggests, "Our possibility is to sheer off what / is only suggested," meaning, as I take it, to objectify ("sheer off") what lies implicit in a scene or an occasion. By that route he will go on to forge a new art out of new materials…. (p. 58)

Dorn has given very careful thought to the idea of subject matter in his writing. Two statements...