Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation

Khalil Murrell, Program Associate, Poetry

In the great, big ol’ picnic of Matthew Dickman’s poems, everything is eligible for singing: a glowing, off-the-vine “Roma,” the chicken hung in the window in “The Mysterious Human Heart,” and even the skinny girl wearing a Talk Nerdy to Me t-shirt in “V.” His poems enter and re-enter the strange and heart-wrenching places of American life (see “Lents District” and “Trouble”) without leaving us in sentimentality or despair. He takes us to places as democratic and basic as Walmart without simplifying the complex world into “Love” and roses.

Dickman’s debut collection, All American Poem, offers rich tensions between humor and heartbreak—even the joyride through sorrow—that fill our everyday lives. In fact, like Jeffrey McDaniel and Tony Hoagland, Dickman often employs jest and witticism on his way to poignancy. Watch him read “Slow Dance” below.

We’ve all heard more people write poetry than those who read it. True or not, this sentiment may result from the belief that poetry—arguably the most democratic of all the arts—feels removed at times from its capacity to engage the masses. But with a Whitmanian catalog style that spills down the page, Dickman seems to have found a way to write inclusive and accessible, yet densely complex poems that help bridge the gap between high art and the mainstream. “I want to write poems I want to read, in a way,” the Portland native said in an interview. Matthew and his brother, Michael Dickman, may be the closest thing the poetry world has ever come to having a phenom, including being profiled in the New Yorker and having a small role as a pre-cog in Minority Report with Tom Cruise. But the hearty muscularity and generosity of his work suggest both Dickman and his poems will be around for a long time to come.

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Return in the weeks ahead as we continue to profile the 2010 Festival Poets.

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The Geraldine R. Dodge Poetry Festival in Newark is October 7 – 10
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Martin Farawell, Program Director, Poetry

In “Romantic Moment,” which he read at the 2006 Dodge Poetry Festival, Tony Hoagland manages to turn both love poetry and nature poetry on their heads.

For centuries, poets have asserted that poetry forces us to stop and look more closely at the world around us. Like the thousands of nature poems that have come before it, Hoagland’s poem pays meticulous attention to detail. The more specific his descriptions become, the greater the absurdity of the images evoked, and the louder the audience laughs. Although he never states it directly, the poem forces us to wonder at the absurdity of the elaborate protocols that dominate human courtship.

And yet, there is gentleness in his treatment of the couple, who finally decide to simply get some ice cream at this stage of their particular mating ritual. There is always heart at the heart of Hoagland’s humor. Although the poems can often be biting—there were several points during his readings at the Festival when the audience shared a collective gasp—Hoagland turns his wit most often against himself.

Poets have also asserted that poems force us to look inward, at ourselves. Hoagland is a relentless observer of human behavior and motivation, constantly digging into the deeper layers beneath what consciousness typically allows us to acknowledge about ourselves. His is not an escapist’s or a cynic’s humor. It is rooted in tenderness toward our human foibles and faith in our potential. He invites us to laugh, and we do because sometimes when we hurt, laughter offers greater relief than crying.

The text of “Romantic Moment ” can be found in the chapbook Hard Rain. Tony Hoagland’s most recent full-length collection was What Narcissism Means to Me, and Unincorporated Persons in the Late Honda Dynasty will be out soon.

Be sure to return for upcoming Poetry Fridays, when we will feature many poets from past Dodge Poetry Festivals in the weeks ahead, including Linda Hogan, Taslima Nasreen and others.

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