Post by John Cheddar on May 7, 2012 8:52:47 GMT -5
Note- you would not need a first paragraph like the one on this sheet as this was more an introduction to the program and a thank you to those who funded the program.
Good evening.
12 years ago, former Westfield High School English teacher Liz Mueller envisioned an event that would allow our students a chance to listen to and interact with some of the most important voices in contemporary American poetry and, with the help of her department, established the WHS Visiting Poets Series. Since its inception we have had the pleasure of hearing a wide range of voices, all with their own unique styles and concerns. From Marie Howe to Valzhyna Mort, from Li-Young Lee to Pulitzer Prize winner Philip Schultz, from Mark Doty to the late Sekou Sundiata, from Maria Mazziotti Gillan to Carolyn Forche, and from Matthew Dickman to his twin brother Michael Dickman this evening; the program has been ever evolving in order to offer a memorable experience to our students, the Westfield Community, and to all those who have taken part over the years. I am proud to continue this tradition tonight as we celebrate our tenth installment. An event, such as this, can only happen in a community that values intellectual and artistic freedom and through the support and generosity of the Westfield High School Parent Teacher Student Organization who is funding this year’s program.
When Ms. Montick, a member of the PTSO’s executive board, contacted me this past summer and informed me of the organization’s interest in helping us resurrect the series from its one year hiatus, I knew immediately that Michael Dickman was our man and the type of poet who epitomizes what this event is all about. I have seen Michael conduct readings on several occasions and his poems have been in a steady rotation in my own classes since first appearing in The New Yorker, Narrative , or upon the publication of his first collection The End of the West. Last year, I was pleased to see that I was not alone in my admiration for Michael, when his second collection Flies was awarded The James Laughlin Award by the Academy of American Poets.
While I don’t disagree with those who label Dickman: a Dickenson for post post modernity, perhaps it’s the ekphrastic works in his most recent collection that got me thinking that Michael is more akin to the surrealist painter Rene Magritte. Dickman uses language as the medium with which to paint seemingly ordinary objects that pack perceptual punch. His poems do not attempt to prescribe meaning so much as they, like Magritte’s paintings, intend to evoke mystery and contemplation. While Magritte painted apples and pipes that aspired to be something beyond what were, Dickman’s poems too meet this aspiration as they are not just poems, they are, as their titles suggest,
“Late Meditations,”
“False Starts,”
“Little Prayers,”
and “Translations.”
Michael conjures the landscapes of a collective inner child, as he leads us out into fields of “piss yellow lawns,” yet somehow still makes us feel compelled to graze.
He makes a “list of everything that has ever been on fire”—then ignites it and in so doing simultaneously lights a path for our journey through the human condition while also keeping us warm as we set forth upon our way.
Told with the simplicity of a child, but with the intricate detail and beauty of a poet at the top of his game, Michael Dickman’s poetry, in his own word, “wants more than anything to get down on paper what all the shining looks like” and if that goal is not lofty enough, his work aims to “save us who need to be saved.”
This is serious work, examining all that we did not make, but are forced to understand and endure. Whether through his signature way of placing the words upon the page, organizing lines into stanzas, or the care with which he gives voice to his words during readings, his poetry is an antidote to our 4G world. They are works that demand slowness,
reflection—
and a lingering of sorts.
He asks, “What is there/when you look down inside yourself?” and whether the answer is the literal litany of “brain, eyes, lungs” or the grandeur of the metaphoric “bright brainlight” or a “Conveyor belt of stars and saints,” we are better served for having taken part in the exercise.
As my students can attest, I really love poetry, and I can go on and on, and fear that if I have not already, I am about to...So with that said, let’s delay no longer, I’m going to step aside and let Michael do what he does. Please join me in welcoming Westfield High School’s tenth visiting poet Michael Dickman.
Good evening.
12 years ago, former Westfield High School English teacher Liz Mueller envisioned an event that would allow our students a chance to listen to and interact with some of the most important voices in contemporary American poetry and, with the help of her department, established the WHS Visiting Poets Series. Since its inception we have had the pleasure of hearing a wide range of voices, all with their own unique styles and concerns. From Marie Howe to Valzhyna Mort, from Li-Young Lee to Pulitzer Prize winner Philip Schultz, from Mark Doty to the late Sekou Sundiata, from Maria Mazziotti Gillan to Carolyn Forche, and from Matthew Dickman to his twin brother Michael Dickman this evening; the program has been ever evolving in order to offer a memorable experience to our students, the Westfield Community, and to all those who have taken part over the years. I am proud to continue this tradition tonight as we celebrate our tenth installment. An event, such as this, can only happen in a community that values intellectual and artistic freedom and through the support and generosity of the Westfield High School Parent Teacher Student Organization who is funding this year’s program.
When Ms. Montick, a member of the PTSO’s executive board, contacted me this past summer and informed me of the organization’s interest in helping us resurrect the series from its one year hiatus, I knew immediately that Michael Dickman was our man and the type of poet who epitomizes what this event is all about. I have seen Michael conduct readings on several occasions and his poems have been in a steady rotation in my own classes since first appearing in The New Yorker, Narrative , or upon the publication of his first collection The End of the West. Last year, I was pleased to see that I was not alone in my admiration for Michael, when his second collection Flies was awarded The James Laughlin Award by the Academy of American Poets.
While I don’t disagree with those who label Dickman: a Dickenson for post post modernity, perhaps it’s the ekphrastic works in his most recent collection that got me thinking that Michael is more akin to the surrealist painter Rene Magritte. Dickman uses language as the medium with which to paint seemingly ordinary objects that pack perceptual punch. His poems do not attempt to prescribe meaning so much as they, like Magritte’s paintings, intend to evoke mystery and contemplation. While Magritte painted apples and pipes that aspired to be something beyond what were, Dickman’s poems too meet this aspiration as they are not just poems, they are, as their titles suggest,
“Late Meditations,”
“False Starts,”
“Little Prayers,”
and “Translations.”
Michael conjures the landscapes of a collective inner child, as he leads us out into fields of “piss yellow lawns,” yet somehow still makes us feel compelled to graze.
He makes a “list of everything that has ever been on fire”—then ignites it and in so doing simultaneously lights a path for our journey through the human condition while also keeping us warm as we set forth upon our way.
Told with the simplicity of a child, but with the intricate detail and beauty of a poet at the top of his game, Michael Dickman’s poetry, in his own word, “wants more than anything to get down on paper what all the shining looks like” and if that goal is not lofty enough, his work aims to “save us who need to be saved.”
This is serious work, examining all that we did not make, but are forced to understand and endure. Whether through his signature way of placing the words upon the page, organizing lines into stanzas, or the care with which he gives voice to his words during readings, his poetry is an antidote to our 4G world. They are works that demand slowness,
reflection—
and a lingering of sorts.
He asks, “What is there/when you look down inside yourself?” and whether the answer is the literal litany of “brain, eyes, lungs” or the grandeur of the metaphoric “bright brainlight” or a “Conveyor belt of stars and saints,” we are better served for having taken part in the exercise.
As my students can attest, I really love poetry, and I can go on and on, and fear that if I have not already, I am about to...So with that said, let’s delay no longer, I’m going to step aside and let Michael do what he does. Please join me in welcoming Westfield High School’s tenth visiting poet Michael Dickman.