"Their verse . . . is strikingly different. Michael's poems are interior, fragmentary, and austere, often stripped down to single-word lines; they seethe with incipient violence. Matthew's are effusive, ecstatic, and all-embracing, spilling over with pop-cultural references and exuberant carnality." -The New YorkerIdentical twins Michael and Matthew Dickman once invented their own language. Now they have invented an exhilarating book of poem-plays about the fifty states. P...

The multi-award winning Dickman twins are from America's outstanding generation of younger poets. Their poetry lives take different expression. Matthew writes with the ebullience of Frank O'Hara, Allen Ginsberg and Jack Kerouac; Michael with the control of William Carlos Williams and Emily Dickinson. But they are unified by the unflinching, remarkable verse they wrote when their older brother took his own life. It is these moving, grieving but life-affirming poems that solely comprise this...

"Hilarity transfiguring all that dread, manic overflow of powerful feeling, zero at the bone-Flies renders its desolation with singular invention and focus and figuration: the making of these poems makes them exhilarating."-James Laughlin Award citation"Reading Michael [Dickman] is like stepping out of an overheated apartment building to be met, unexpectedly, by an exhilaratingly chill gust of wind."-The New Yorker"These are lithe, seemingly effortless poe...

"Dickman's book moves with careful intensity as it confidently illuminates buried, contemporary suffering."—Publishers Weekly"Elizabeth Bishop said that the three qualities she admired most in poetry were accuracy, spontaneity, and mystery. Michael Dickman's first full-length collection of poems demonstrates each brilliantly....These are lithe, seemingly effortless poems, poems whose strange affective power remains even after several readings. Again and again the language ...

"Reading Michael [Dickman] is like stepping out of an overheated apartment building to be met, unexpectedly, by an exhilaratingly chill gust of wind."-The New Yorker"These are lithe, seemingly effortless poems, poems whose strange affective power remains even after several readings."-The Believer"My master plan is happiness," writes Michael Dickman in his wonderfully strange third book, Green Migraine. Here, imagination and reality swirl in the ju...

**The Pulitzer Prize winner’s final written work: poems of penetrating acceptance and humor, whose soul-sweeping gaze encompasses his own autobiography and the broken world he nonetheless gives thanks for“His hands strip poetry to its nub.” —Los Angeles Times“Reading [Wright] is like walking through a plate-glass window on purpose. . . . The shattering sound you heard was your own heart breaking.” —Chicago Tribune**“My death is in the second drawer...

SWEET ROMANCE: Though Lady Luck had more spunk than skills, she was determined not only to restore the bungalow she found, but also replace the sign above the porch, that read, "Born To Lose." She promised herself, that one day, when it looked the part, she would change its name to "Lady Luck." It was what her daddy always called her. It fit too. Poor as her family was, it never stopped them from making the best out of her life. Ever since third grade—when rich kids on the hill made fun of...

“Poetry,” writes best-selling author Ellen Bass, “is the way I pay attention, appreciate, give praise, struggle, grieve, rage, and pray. It’s the way I embody my love for the world.”The Human Line, Bass’ seventh book of poems, startles with its precise detail, intimate images, and wild metaphors. Bass brings attention to life’s endearing absurdities, and many of the poems flash with a keen sense of humor. She also faces many of the crucial moral dilemmas of our time—geneti...

If we had the chance to do things again differently, would we?Hard to say when the snow began falling. In the 2020s, there were rumors of global warming, of severe weather changes and it was not all rumor. Many of us could feel the changes. Warm and then cold. Rain and then the sunniest of days. Then all went bad, warmer and warmer each day.

Balancing heart-intelligent intimacy and surprising humor, the poems in Ellen Bass’s Mules of Love illuminate the essential dynamics of our lives: family, community, sexual love, joy, loss, religion and death. The poems also explore the darker aspects of humanity—personal, cultural, historical and environmental violence—all of which are handled with compassion and grace. Bass’s poetic gift is her ability to commiserate with others afflicted by similar hungers and grief. Her poem "...

Bob Hicok's poems are often edgy, brazen, and funny. They’re just as likely to be soulful, reflective, and provocative. Usually at the same time. As Hicok builds toward the punchline of a poem set up with his characteristic wit, he zigs into seriousness. A thoughtful meditation that builds to a moment of epiphany zags into comedy. Hicok's fluid ability to shift moods, the richness of his visual palette, and his idiosyncratic use of language fill the pages of Insomnia Diary. The fo...

From a dazzling, award-winning young poet, a collection that paints life as a celebration in the dark.At the center of Mayakovsky’s Revolver is the suicide of Matthew Dickman’s older brother. “Known for poems of universality of feeling, expressive lyricism of reflection, and heartrending allure” (Major Jackson), Dickman is a powerful poet whose new collection explores how to persevere in the wake of grief.*from “Mayakovsky’s Revolver”I keep...