milkish crunch

I opened my copy of Matthew Dickman's All-American Poem and fell in love with this mission statement, not even the poems themselves or an epigraph.

"At the heart of the mission of the Honickman Foundation is the belief that creativity enriches contemporary society because the arts are powerful tools for enlightenment, equity and empowerment, and must be encouraged to effect social change as well as personal growth. A current focus is on the particular power of photography and poetry to reflect and interpret reality, and, hence, to illuminate all that is true."

Dickman's poems seem to have such big hearts. It's strange, I've read so much cynicism, so much poetry about broken things, which I appreciate and definitely has its place.  But I haven't read much, like his, that has a soft spot in the heart but hasn't gone too sugary.  Some writing is so sweet you feel pained.  Reminds me of Anna Karenina's opening line, "Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way."  Well-written hopeful poems are so few and difficult to write but Dickman makes it seem effortless and even a little bubbly.

"Sometimes / you can look at the clouds or the trees / and they look nothing like the clouds or trees or the sky or the ground."     from Trouble


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"I like / the way geese sound above river. I like / the little soaps you find in hotel bathrooms because they're beautiful."     from Trouble


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"The milkish crunch beneath our boots / and the bright blue breath rising from our mouths like smokestacks."     from Snow