Customer Reviews

Entire Dilemma: Poems

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At times I carry Entire Dilemma around as a sort of companion and protector. When I'm riding the bus or waiting somewhere for time to pass, I read my friend. What makes this book so alive for me is Burkard's kind voice. There's no flash, no bull, yet it penetrates through the swirl of loud and profane discourse. Lovers of sparkles and shimmers and chiffon, lovers of cum and cusswords and suicides, go look somewhere else. This book is for people who are ready for the truth.

What I love about these poems is how subtle yet powerful they are. The book begins with a snapshot of the ordinary: the poet having a dream about a man he knows named Fred. This rather mundane human experience forms the first layer of many layers of the complex intimacy that is a Michael Burkard collection. There is a poem about how to ask to have a book back that the poet once gave away. There is a poem about socks. And these collide with the deeper, more painful poems about thinking about getting sober, not getting sober, getting sober and finally staying there. Poems about a life lived, and also the lives not lived. These are poems clearly written by a contemporary master. They are kind, wise, funny, they make you go "oh yeah...I know what you mean!" They make you stop breathing for an instant, as all good poems do.