All-American Poem

My first poetry workshop with MFA students left the awful impression that good poetry and obtuse poetry were synonymous. This was devastating. Luckily, that experience was the result of a compression exercise gone haywire.

Matthew Dickman’s All American Poem is the poetry collection I’ve been waiting for. It’s straight-forward without insulting my intelligence. It’s aware of the world. It’s accessable.  It’s brilliantly written and boldly executed.

Dickman writes poetry that’s unpretentious and engaging. Place, pop-culture, lust, and love are just a few of the subjects taken on in this collection. Surprisingly, I was able to read several of Dickman’s multi-page poems back to back. The masters have yet to achieve this kind of harmony with my brain. Matthew Dickman writes the way I aspire to write.

This is contemporary poetry at it’s best. Read it.

Related links:

Fishouse Poems-Matthew Dickman
Northwest Writers At Work-The Poetry Posse