Michael Magee - My Angie Dickinson (03/08/2010)

Whoa. This book is such a trip. Reading this book makes me feel like I'm in some sort of whirlwind, falling through the rabbit hole. There are all these objects and people that are known in normal life, but the phrases that link them together make no sense. It's like the Mad Hatter. Like the caterpillar smoking up. A little bit psychotic. Not that that's necessarily bad.

The book takes you down a path you think you know- poems built from stanzas, numbered and spaced with dashes like Emily Dickinson's work- but then hits you over the head with the amount of chaos that's happening. You read a poem, thinking you've recognized things (Margaret Thatcher & the Sphinx, for example) and will now be able to deconstruct it, only to realize you really have no clue what it's about. You're left with the feeling that Magee has taken a little bit of Dickinson and made it something wicked.

Take this excerpt from #102, for example:

Her wound apologizes —
In public — Like a Sailor —
Permeating the postwar years
“Like a” throbbing — Hangover —

At first glance, the it looks like a Dickinsonian verse. It's short, has several dashes, and has quick but lasting phrases that make it up. On second glance, the poem makes no sense. How does a wound apologize and what does that have to do with war or hangovers? At third glance, the poem is so naughty! Sailors (notoriously unmannered and brash) permeating something.... a woman's "wound" perhaps? Makes my mind go straight to the gutter.

Another thing that caught my eye was how in some poems, it seems like Magee is writing from a more feminine point of view. He really seems to be stepping into Dickinson's shoes here. For example:

#77
I’ll never sit on pleather again!
Miguel would never — — have dared pretend
It took a Real Cowboy to pull it — —

My innermost feelings — — Can Be — — like Mike — —
But if the Future is Matrix — — like — —
I can’t wait to do some “bullet”!

It doesn't seem especially manly to be worried about where one is going to sit or talk about one's "innermost feelings". Another example of this is #29:

I dressed, ran toward some nearby woods
with booklet and nice
something — “About” — the mourning dove’s —
low note’s Excuse —

Running into the woods with a booklet (perhaps a novel or a diary) and commenting on the birds seems like something a girl would do, like Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm or Anne of Green Gables. It is also reminiscent of Dickinson, in the way that she commented on nature and and wrote about things she noticed in her garden.

All in all, I'm not sure if this collection is an ode to Dickinson or just an opportunity to poke fun at her style. I think it might be a combination of both.