Blake Butler
Book Reviews / 22 Comments
March 17th, 2009 / 12:13 pm
“Church and State” (guest posted by Rauan Klassnik)
or “Michael Schiavo’s Negative Review of Matthew Dickman’s All-American Poem” (“The Anti-Whitman or Out of Many, Me, Me, Me: Matthew Dickman’s All American Poem.”)
[A guest post (hopefully the first of many) by Rauan Klassnik -ed.]
Michael Schiavo has written a very passionate and very negative review of Matthew Dickman and his poetry.
In the aftermath of his review Michael Schiavo has stated that he doesn’t “plan on doing negative reviews, especially of this intensity, often. But (he) will do so when necessary. And this was necessary. Big picture.”
Michael has also since written that Dickman’s poetry is not even worthy of being called “shit.”
“To even describe these poems as shit is to assign value to them. Shit is the root of things, rids the body of toxins while building up the natural world that surrounds us. It’s part of nature, part of a process that has meaning and power behind it. It’s disconcerting to hold in your hand something that rightly shouldn’t exist.”
March 17th, 2009 / 12:13 pm
