Customer Reviews

The End of the West (Lannan Literary Selections)

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It's true that Michael Dickman, and his twin brother Matthew, have making major waves in the poetry world lately, thanks to some high-profile features in The New Yorker and in the Portland press. The hyped-up novelty of the identical twin poets might put some people off from reading the work, and that would be a real shame. I haven't been able to stop thinking about Michael Dickman's book since I read it, for a number of reasons. The book is stylistically fierce--deep silences and broken language mark every poem--and is emotionally even fiercer. This book is a particular joy because many poets under 40 seem to treat sincerity with suspicion, and choose either an ironic, witty voice or an overly abstract and obscure one. Dickman's poetry is not "easy" but it is immediately, instinctively visceral, and never flip. It's also a relief, in a poetry world dominated by middle-aged poets, to read a book that gives expression to the experiences of those who grew up in Reagan-Bush America, replacing the typical poetry narratives of marriage, childhood, divorce and parental death with those of drug abuse, poverty, illness, violence, death of friends, spiritual confusion, and longing. Dickman is unflinching about depicting the long slide from childhood to adulthood, and he manages to do it without narcissim and with restraint and precision.

My mother waits for me

breathing easy

having let her hair go

silver, white

longer now

shining

in this

one of her many

afterlives

...so starts the longer title poem at the end of the book. Michael Dickman, unafraid of facing a brutal upbringing, brings us a sparse, symbolic, minimally punctuated style - and I don't say this lightly - uniquely his own. What the reader is left with, in the blank spaces, is the depth of human lives lingering around death, smirking at hope.

It's hard to imagine healthier ways to look at a tough upbringing full of drugs, parents who never made it out of their own childhoods, and well-meaning yet thin promises of relief, let alone a better life. Best to face the bitter, acidic past and get it over with - maybe. The summarizing end poem suggests that as merely a possibility. The poetic triumph here is the narrative of a boy, sometimes young, sometimes in his teens or twenties, slowly backing away from his environment, frantically looking around at bitter contradictions. The pausing - short lines, stanzas and poems - leaves the reader sunken emotionally and without looking at anything else but the people in Dickman's early life. But in stepping into this universe one is never confused, and never deceived one single bit. Dickman uses vivid, specific details in each poem, and powerful, open symbolism to bring a decaying world to life.

From the 3rd poem in one of my favorite series, "Returning to Church":

The light through the stained-glass window was snow

Do you want to be home forever?

Its all right if you do

Kiss me in the pew among strangers who aren't strangers but His

other homeless children

The light through the stained-lass window

was snow, not Grace

not Spirit

Not, lightly

His fingers

I'm eager to see what Michael Dickman comes up with next.

This is a terrific and astonishing collection of poems. I jolted in my seat reading the last stanza of Scary Parents.

There have only been a handful of times in my reading life where the lyricism of a work has compelled to read it out loud on a first reading; this was one of those times. Just gorgeous. I am eager to read his next collection, to follow his career.

I loved this collection of poetry. I believe it is autobiographical, due to it being so personal and raw, so it almost makes it like a memoir. The only problem I had was with the last poem, which was the title poem, because it deferred from the format of the rest of the poems. However, I would recommend this collection to any poetry lover (who is not afraid of some curse words or drug references)!

A fragmented past, an intense scrutiny.

The images---stark, potent, and uncontrived. They're often playful, but never glib.

The lines---there is a vague anxiety hovering over the page and the lines have been edited down to the quick, in a bitten fingernail sort of way.

The art---there is a sense of careful poetic process. An alchemical clarification has taken place resulting in concise stanzas of oddball beauty.

The knowledge of the medium---the poet allows the empty space on the page to function as a source of luminosity which surrounds his thematic darkness. It illuminates meanings that are barely suggested, gives shape to characters that are ghostly sketches, and deepens the contours of memories that are tersely outlined. It is a gift to be able to handle the poetic form in this way.

The outcome---a small marvel of balance between light, form, significance, shadow...and erasure.