Perfection: The standard by which everyone and everything is compared. It is a measure that people pursue and rarely achieve. The pursuit of perfection causes many people to realize their faults and their human characteristics. In "Love Song: I and Thou ," Dugan's realization of his own imperfect life implied through a misshapen house is recorded through strong straightforward statements and through a first person narrative that allows the reader to both sympathize and empathize with his failures.
             Dugan's style in "Love Song, I and Thou" is created through the strong language he uses to express his dissatisfaction with himself. Sharp, straightforward statements strike a response in the reader, "God dammed it. This is hell,/ but I planned it, I sawed it,/ I nailed it" (lines 23-25). Dugan is able to accept the fact that he has not led a perfect life, blaming no one but himself for his shortcomings. His "insistent first-person is without self-importance or self-pity. He is not complaining so much as chewing out himself and his world" (CLC 144). His first person style allows the reader to relate his failures with their own failures. Everyone has felt the frustration and Hopelessness that Dugan conveys throughout the poem.
             Structure is a main reason Dugan is able to express his theme so clearly. The overall structure of the poem is able to represent his theme of imperfection. The left hand margin is uneven, and the poem seems to flow without any particular justification given to line breaks or tempo. There is no pattern found in the poem that suggests fluidity occurs. In a sense, the structure is chaotic or in Dugan's own words, "Nothing is plumb, level or square" (1). The poem can be broken down into three distinct mood shifts that occur in lines eighteen, twenty, and twenty-nine. Dugan begins the poem with feelings of frustration and anger, and dra...