The End of the West by Michael Dickman

From the Publisher

"Dickman's book moves with careful intensity as it confidently illuminates buried, contemporary suffering."—Publishers Weekly

The poems in Michael Dickman’s energized debut document the bright desires and all-too-common sufferings of modern times: the churn of domestic violence, spiritual longing, drug abuse, and the impossible expectations fathers have for their sons. In a poem that references heroin and “scary parents,” Dickman reminds us that “Still there is a lot to pray to on earth.” Dickman is a poet to watch.

You can go blind, waiting

Unbelievable quiet
except for their
soundings

Moving the sea around

Unbelievable quiet inside you, as they change
the face of water

The only other time I felt this still was watching Leif shoot up when we were twelve

Sunlight all over his face

breaking
the surface of something
I couldn’t see

You can wait your
whole life

Michael Dickman was born and raised in Portland, Oregon, and began writing poems “after accidentally reading a Neruda ode.” His work has appeared in The New Yorker, Tin House, and The American Poetry Review.

Publishers Weekly

Some form of light-sunlight, moonlight, starlight, streetlight- appears in every one of the 18 poems in Dickman's debut. Slight and spare, the poems' frequent recurring themes accumulate beneficially, linking all the individual poems into one, more substantial, piece. Nothing grand takes place in these poems, but the quietness of the language and the creeping, sinister subject matter (heroin addiction, abusive fathers) make this highly anticipated book captivating and very readable, "a nice description of something beautiful that doesn't exist anymore," as Dickman writes. Elsewhere, he grimly recalls, "No one I loved had died for almost two years // Then Amy bled out / in a bathtub." As one half of the Dickman twins (both are actors, and the other, Matthew, also recently published his first poetry collection), Michael has received the kind of advance publicity rare for a new poet. Profiles in both Poets and Writers and the New Yorker as well as publication during National Poetry Month should ensure a larger than usual audience. And the attention is not undeserved; Dickman's book moves with careful intensity as it confidently illuminates buried, contemporary suffering: "My little sister, tied to her trundle bed, crying, forced to eat slices of orange/ she believed were her goldfish." (Apr.)

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