I read Michael Dickman's (Matthew Dickman's brother) book of poetry, The End of the West and I really liked this one as well. Ultimately Michael is more my type than Matthew. His poems are really brutal. I saw a quote from an interview with his brother and Matthew said the way to tell them apart is that "Michael has a girlfriend and he has glasses." Of course that momentarily broke my heart, but as I don't actually know Michael, it was only momentarily. I started thinking about what it would be like to date someone who writes poems with lines like:

Make a list
of everything that's
ever been

on fire-

Abandoned cars
Trees
The sea

Your mother burned down to the skeleton

so she could come back, born back from her bed, and walk around the
house again, exhausted
in slippers

What else?

Your brain
Your eyes
Your lungs

That is the first fucking page of the book. Seriously? Dating him would be a lovely nightmare. He is 34 now, but I can't imagine he's changed much from the younger self he's written about.

It made me think about myself. I will never not be the way I am, even if I am with someone. I will always be overemotional and anxious and I will always cry when I write poetry even if I'm sitting in the fucking sunshine. How do you tell people that? I try. I think this is why people don't like me.

Female poets don't have the same allure male poets do. Matthew and Michael started writing to get girls to kiss them and it worked. The female poet is always placed next to Sylvia Plath. I am not depressed or suicidal though. I just like everything too much. Look at how defensive I am getting in dialogue with myself.