Post by mikeda112 on May 30, 2013 19:49:55 GMT -5
Forcefully embroiled in a community known for gang violence and alcoholic parents; Matthew Dickman’s success is quite admirable. Growing up in Portland, Oregon in the 1980s and mid 1990s meant that Matthew’s birth was also the conception of a difficult childhood ahead. Dickman himself stated that he was lucky to have lived in a supportive single mother household. He says that there was always food on the table for him and his siblings and his mother was never abusive. The pleasantness of his loved ones contrasted with the despair of the area in which he grew up was no doubt an influence on the subjects of his poetry.
Not only dangerous, the community that he lived in did not support the Arts or the artistic imagination of children. Fortunately, Matthew Dickman found, in his words, an oasis within this hand to mouth landscape. That oasis was the Head Start Program, a government service that provides education, health, and parent involvement services to low-income children and their families. The program gave Dickman the freedom of creative and intellectual exploration. Dickman believes that his experience in Head Start gave him the tools to say no to the violence in his neighborhood and greatly influenced his life as an adult. He then studied at the University of Oregon and afterward earned an MFA from the University of Texas.
Dickman’s tendency to contrast the horrible with the blissful is no doubt influenced by that real life juxtaposition he observed while growing up. He knows that even though both he and the world have “made mistakes. Small and cruel… The slow dance doesn’t careâ€. The slow dance signifies those small bursts of happiness we can experience in an otherwise cruel world. Dickman says that even though “Ernest Hemmingway put a shotgun to his head in a tree house… I want to be good to myselfâ€. The despair of the world cannot be what is solely focused on. That is the essence of Matthew Dickman’s poetry. He makes clear that optimism can come from anywhere, even from the “strange son†of the gang filled Lents District of Portland Oregon where “Jason went crazy- waving his father’s gun above his headâ€.
On the opposite end of the spectrum, Dickman can also start off with a joyful and charming mood that slowly descends into madness. He notes that when we make a snowman “with a lobster claw pipe, a pebble nose, and two eyes made out of shellsâ€, we must realize that a creature once lived in the shell, the pebble was ground from a great rock, and the claw was pulled from a lobster. The juxtaposition of joy and despair is seen once again, only this time he reveals the darkness in the light rather than the light in the darkness.
His works have received several acclaims including the Kate Tufts Award from Claremont College, the May Sarton Award from the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the 2009 Oregon Book Award, and two fellowships from Literary Arts of Oregon. He is a man who is no doubt worthy of the attention we give him tonight. I now present Matthew Dickman.
Word Count: 522
Not only dangerous, the community that he lived in did not support the Arts or the artistic imagination of children. Fortunately, Matthew Dickman found, in his words, an oasis within this hand to mouth landscape. That oasis was the Head Start Program, a government service that provides education, health, and parent involvement services to low-income children and their families. The program gave Dickman the freedom of creative and intellectual exploration. Dickman believes that his experience in Head Start gave him the tools to say no to the violence in his neighborhood and greatly influenced his life as an adult. He then studied at the University of Oregon and afterward earned an MFA from the University of Texas.
Dickman’s tendency to contrast the horrible with the blissful is no doubt influenced by that real life juxtaposition he observed while growing up. He knows that even though both he and the world have “made mistakes. Small and cruel… The slow dance doesn’t careâ€. The slow dance signifies those small bursts of happiness we can experience in an otherwise cruel world. Dickman says that even though “Ernest Hemmingway put a shotgun to his head in a tree house… I want to be good to myselfâ€. The despair of the world cannot be what is solely focused on. That is the essence of Matthew Dickman’s poetry. He makes clear that optimism can come from anywhere, even from the “strange son†of the gang filled Lents District of Portland Oregon where “Jason went crazy- waving his father’s gun above his headâ€.
On the opposite end of the spectrum, Dickman can also start off with a joyful and charming mood that slowly descends into madness. He notes that when we make a snowman “with a lobster claw pipe, a pebble nose, and two eyes made out of shellsâ€, we must realize that a creature once lived in the shell, the pebble was ground from a great rock, and the claw was pulled from a lobster. The juxtaposition of joy and despair is seen once again, only this time he reveals the darkness in the light rather than the light in the darkness.
His works have received several acclaims including the Kate Tufts Award from Claremont College, the May Sarton Award from the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the 2009 Oregon Book Award, and two fellowships from Literary Arts of Oregon. He is a man who is no doubt worthy of the attention we give him tonight. I now present Matthew Dickman.
Word Count: 522