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A review by mattdube
Flies by Michael Dickman
3.0
A book of closely observed lyrics about family-- if there was a larger resonance to the narratives that span this book and the emotional dynamics at work here, I didn't see it. I'm not saying that's a terrible thing, but this did feel like a fairly hermetically sealed world to me.
The form of the poems was interesting-- this wasn't a classic case of "lots of whitespace" though there are lots of one line stanzas here, breaking up sentences, etc. Other than the stanza breaks, in fact, the poems are pretty regular in their layout. I tried to read the poems as if there was some reason for their fracturing, especially when there were two line stanzas in the middle of poem of otherwise one line stanzas, but I never got very far with that. I do think that it brings in a level of intensity to what is being described, but then, that intensity was being summoned forth so often, it became kind of the regular mode of reading and lost its distinctiveness....
The form of the poems was interesting-- this wasn't a classic case of "lots of whitespace" though there are lots of one line stanzas here, breaking up sentences, etc. Other than the stanza breaks, in fact, the poems are pretty regular in their layout. I tried to read the poems as if there was some reason for their fracturing, especially when there were two line stanzas in the middle of poem of otherwise one line stanzas, but I never got very far with that. I do think that it brings in a level of intensity to what is being described, but then, that intensity was being summoned forth so often, it became kind of the regular mode of reading and lost its distinctiveness....