Wonderland: Poems [Paperback]

Matthew Dickman engages the traces of his own living past in poems that light both heart and mind (David Kirby, Tender and troubling, dark and glowing. There is an unabashed rapture to these poems.& How astounding, and how perfectly troubling, to be led through this fearsome, familiar realm of choked silences and violent collisions by an intelligence as deft and buoyant as Matthew Dickmans. Its not possible to stop reading this book once you start, because its to the bone, every word, no window dressing, no artifice, no high-fat content. My first thought about the poems in Matthew Dickmans new collection, [Dickmans] ability not only to recollect but also to relive his childhood in the present moment, as if boy and man coexisted and conversed with each other, manifests a hard-won wisdom. The poems are ferocious and hardened by a backdrop of addiction and poverty.& In Dickmans poems, readers observe as the bright-eyed potential of youth is shattered by the devastation of adulthoods onset. [Dickmans] imagination, the possibility of better, helped him filter and preserve from the sharp and rusty clutter the beautiful moments of childhood. Thus, the collection relates a sweetness it should by all accounts be unable to render. Dickman reenters youth in all its peaks and valleyswithout exaggeration or clich?.& While many of Dickmans poems tell stories and carry narratives across poems, they also follow their own meandering logic, like a late night conversation. A wonderful new poetic voice writing warm and cozy visions of old Portland, Oregon. I loved it. WithUS