Slow Dance Matthew Dickman Analysis

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Poetry can be seen as a way to get our subconscious thoughts into words, and that is what Matthew Dickman’s work in All- American Poem (2008). All-American Poem comments on American society; in fact, it acknowledges the conflict between American history and the current events of the modern day. Dickman's first collection is as American as Walt Whitman, Abraham Lincoln, and Pepsi-Cola. Winner of the APR/Honickman First Book Prize, Dickman shows his perception of the world through his body of work of subconscious thoughts. Dickman’s poems are confessional and narrative enough to be entries in his diary. Dickman writes all of his poems like an autobiography; telling a story from his point of view incorporating his thoughts and ideas. He expresses what he believes and what he likes, while telling a descriptive story that, often, has a digression from his …show more content…

Dickman’s poetry is not rated PG; nevertheless, he talks about sexual relationships in a tasteful way. Poetry can be used as a way of expressing passions, as Dickman expresses in his body of work. The lines, “When the woman I’m sleeping with/ stands naked in the bathroom, / brushing her teeth, the slow dance of ritual is being spit/ into the sink.” from “Slow Dance” are a small example of Dickman expressing a sexual relationship and making a connection to something in his subconscious mind.
Since Dickman’s writing style is an uninterrupted train of thought, why do poems seem to fit together? Diction is the key to Dickman’s poetry; it is those words that jump of the page and can be embedded into your memory that make his work so impressionable. The first thing that will jump out at readers, as it did to me, is that he is not afraid to use curse words or sexual language. “And it is right, necessary even, fuck–…” from “We Are Not Temples” displays how in Dickman’s natural thought process, no word is off

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