EWU logo

    • Apply
    • Academics
    • Athletics
    • Calendar
    • Community
    • About
    • InsideEWU
    • Canvas
  • Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to footer

Willow Springs Magazine

  • Issues
    • Current Issue
    • Back Issues
  • Subscribe
  • Author Profiles
  • Interviews
  • Store
  • News and Events
  • Media
  • Triceratops Poetry Outreach
  • About
    • About
    • Masthead
    • Contact Us
  • Submit

Issue 68: Matthew Dickman

MatthewDickman_NewBioImage-150x150

About Matthew Dickman

Matthew Dickman is the author of All-American Poem (American Poetry Review/ Copper Canyon Press, 2008). The recipient of The Honickman First Book Prize, the May Sarton Award from the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the Kate Tufts Discovery Award from Claremont College, and the 2009 Oregon Book Award from Literary Arts of Oregon. His poems are forthcoming or have appeared in Tin House Magazine, McSweeny’s, Ploughshares, The Believer, The London Review of Books, and The New Yorker among others. W.W. Norton & Co. will publish his second book in 2012. He lives and works in Portland, Oregon.

A Profile of the Author

Notes on Two Poems

Both “Dog” and “Halcion” were, formally, a departure for me. For a long time my poems seemed to need at least a page and a half for me to figure anything out, for the poem to feel complete in some way, so it was an interesting feeling, a kind of departure, when I began writing shorter poems. “Dog” is part of a longer elegiac sequence written for my older brother after his suicide. Mainly it’s a poem that suggests our shadows are always with us. That we can tame grief and struggle enough to be house trained though they are still wild animals. “Halcion” was written after my first experience taking the drug of the same name. I took it before having my wisdom teeth removed. I’m terrified of the dentist and all things medical. Halcion took care of that fear! It’s a wonder drug. I love it. The poem tries to describe my feelings when I was on it.

Notes on Reading

For a writer, reading is one of the most important experiences that can affect their work. Reading is also a radical act. It’s humanizing in nature. It teaches us, in a natural and very sincere way, about compassion and understanding, about true empathy. Some important books for me, as of late, are Lucia Perillo’s “Inseminating the Elephant,” Diane Wakoski’s “The Butcher’s Apron,” Gary Jackson’s “Missing You, Metropolis,” and Dorothea Lasky’s “Black Life.” Each of these poets are very different from each other but they all have something important in common and that is a wildness of imagination. Each of them raises their freak-flags high which makes me feel brave, in turn,
when I sit down and write.

“Growing Like Houses” by Julialicia Case

Found in Willow Springs 70 Back to Author Profile THE RED AND BLACK BEETLES COME FIRST, settling in swarms on the white plaster of our Arnold Street row house. We come […]

Read More

“Mrs. Schafer Gets Fit” by Miranda McLeod

Found in Willow Springs 70 Back to Author Profile MRS. SCHAFER IS GETTING FIT. Women don’t lose weight anymore, or slim down, or tighten up. They get fit. This is all […]

Read More

“Through the Womb” by Roxane Gay

Found in Willow Springs 70 Back to Author Profile WHEN WE FIRST MET he told me how much he loves children. He told me how much he loves women because they […]

Read More

Three Poems by Laura Read

Found in Willow Springs 70 Back to Author Profile Bureau   When my husband asks me where I put the keys, I say they’re on my bureau, and he says you […]

Read More

Ten Poems by Alexandra Teague

Found in Willow Springs 71 Back to Author Profile Transcontinental 10 Poems   “In a railroad to the Pacific we have a great national work, transcending, in its magnitude, and in […]

Read More

Two Poems by Joseph Millar

Found in Willow Springs 73 Back to Author Profile  Next to Godliness I like to sit with the door wide open listening to March rain gush down on my street wearing […]

Read More

“Tobacco Road & A Proper Elegy for My Father” by Gary Copeland Lilley

Found in Willow Springs 73 Back to Author Profile     A Proper Elegy for My Father   He is the black Marlboro man, the oldest son of a one-legged, gold­ […]

Read More

“The Putting Down of the Mint Julep” by Matthew Gavin Frank

Found in Willow Springs 73 Back to Author Profile THIS SORT OF SIPPING has nothing to do with the martini, or anything as astringent as olive, resinous as juniper. This is […]

Read More
Willow Springs Cover 74 shows blue and brown paint smeared artistically across a rough surface.

“Harvesting Crows” by Doris Lynch

Found in Willow Springs 74 Back to Author Profile Only women can snag them and only females wearing red. Erroneously, many believe that you must prove yourself first by flying off […]

Read More
Willow Springs Cover 74 shows blue and brown paint smeared artistically across a rough surface.

“Bandana” by Tom Howard

Read More
  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • …
  • 45
  • Next »
Tweet

Reader Interactions

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Footer

Eastern Washington University
509.359.6200 • Contact Information
EWU expands opportunities for personal transformation through excellence in learning.
  • About EWU
  • Accessibility
  • Campus Map
  • Visit EWU
  • Diversity
  • InsideEWU
  • EWU Libraries
  • Jobs
  • Campus Locations
  • Canvas
  • Leadership
  • EWU Foundation
  • Privacy Policy
  • Rules Docket

© 2022 Eastern Washington University