Lents District; Slow Dance; Trouble; We r Not Temples by Matthew Dickman - Essay Example

Poem Analysis of Matthew Dickman Lents District The Poem is written by Matthew Dickman, who is originally from Portland, Oregon. Lents is a district where the poem has been written (PBS). Portland being one of the most fabulous cities in US but the poet seems to be from a small District ‘Lents’ where he was born and brought up and can now clearly distinguish between the contrasting features between Lents and New York. He is ashamed of the acts of his countrymen even after a long time of his visit. The first half of the poem only contains the dreadful events he has passed by. He sees the scene of clash between people, the stealing of Vodka and people smoking cigarettes. It seems that the poet was fed up with all these kind of uneducated acts around him and has ran off from Lents to a city( New York) where there’s something beautiful about life. The poet’s mother and other mothers around smoke ‘Marlboro’ wearing red lipsticks and the fathers are involved in shameful acts ‘ tearing from limb to limb’ which pinches the poet. He then points out specifically of the ‘white kids’, the way they were treated and the clear difference of how they were treated, shows the obvious racism the poet has noticed and has faced which further more makes him feel Lents would always stay backward. The ‘white kids’ have been listening to Black Sabbath a well known English band of that time (Ruhlmann). They have been boasting about their ‘rights’ which shows that they every time imposed that they have more right to live here which makes the poet more sad. The ‘white kids’ seems to be enjoying life by playing baseballs, listening to music, and running on the other hand the poet is mourning the truth that the baseballs bats from which they are playing have been made from the trees their fathers have planted, which further disturbs him. The poet however finds himself cool and calm when he sits in his backyard and sees lilac, which blooms his mood for a while, he feels himself to be as deep as in an ocean when he ponders over all these nasty thoughts. The second half of the poem shows his life in New York. He Imagines a Lents kid to be ‘rich’ , and if he has some debts, he isn’t worried about and takes this as fun, shows the people of Lents have been heaped with debts and that they are not rich, and the poet has deeply felt this distinction. He could see the happy and lively life in New York where people aren’t worried and enjoy their life to its full which is reflected in words like ‘ dance line’, ‘Gypsy Jokers’ etc. He mentions some famous names like ‘King Cobras, Los Brazos’ and that he feels jealous deep inside that he wasn’t amongst these. The poem ends with a surprising end that the poet when was being shot by Jason who had his father’s gun and he ran to save his life and in this way he moved to New York. He is thankful to the places as these were the only ones who gave him shelter when the police were in search of him. Slow Dance Matthew Dickman’s this poem has won awards, and is one of the most favorite of many its customers. In this poem the poet is in a complete different mood as compared to ‘Lents District’ where he is found to be complaining more about life, whereas in this poem he just wants to enjoy the beautiful mood he is experiencing with ‘exquisite strangers’, and he is separates it to be from the feeling of getting on to the moon or any other new year resolution. The poet wants to dance in a good mood where he wants to relax himself from all the other matters of life, this could be reflected in the verses ‘ empty bottle of whiskey’ ‘little music’ etc. He just wants to be lost in the person he’s dancing with and feels like he is completely in love with that person for a moment. Then he reveals some of the facts which was troubling him and made him go to this stage, he confesses his mistakes which he refers to them as ‘cruel’ . The poet is playing the slow dance and he finds other everything to be doing a slow dance too, ‘ the slow dance of ritual is being spit into the sink’. He loves to dance with the white dress lady ‘covered in beads’, and enjoys the whole dance and finds the’ orange and orangutan’ to be dancing also. Trouble This poem is completely different from the above two. The poet has talked about several things which show the complexity of the poets mind. He thinks about several aspects at a time. The poem, overall, talks about the poet experiencing crimes. The poet portrays the murder cases faced in the whole poem by referring to various famous names like ‘Marlon Brando’, ‘ Stanley Adams’ , ‘Kathy Change’ etc. Some of them were shot, some took all sleeping pills, one of them set herself on fire and many more cases. The poet has successfully set the name of the poem as Trouble as everyone seems to be in trouble and want to get rid of the life they are living in. The only good thing the poet mentions after describing all of these awful facts is the good things which he mentions is he likes the geese flowing on the river, little soaps he find in the hotel bathrooms’, ‘bring a book to read in a train’ which seems quite surprising as this is completely unrelated to the poem. But this also shows that the poet after suffering all these facts wants himself to escape from the bad world (Dickman). In the end he says that, whenever he wakes in the morning he brushes his teeth has his breakfast, wanting to lead a very normal life and not of those as he has experienced of people mentioned above in the poem. He wants to be good to himself and not like those as the above people did to themselves. He seems to be learning from all the incidents and delivers a short message to the readers that they should live their lives to its best. We r Not Temples In this poem the poet has delivered a complete different set of viewpoints with many complexities. The poem starts with addressing his friend who is a Buddhist and who reveals the fact of life that life in constantly changing and that the worries of life are those which are created by us, which is a silent message for all to understand. The things which we want and do not possess, and the things which we have and we are less excited about it, and all those dreams in which we live most of our days is all that which we have built in within ourselves and same is the case with the poet who confesses the same in the poem (Ronaldmetellus). The poet portrays the lively life in Florida and all those excitements the people there faced referring to words like, ‘wild and native’ , ‘ children built castles’ , ‘ tea cup rides’, ‘Sun Dances’ etc. He says that he is as normal as anyone treats him, whether someone loves him or hates him. He then unhide his learnt skills, ‘lead play guitar’, ‘ lead roles in movies’ which shows that the life has been given to him by God at its best but still he seems to be complaining. He shows great respect for all females, ‘ don’t want to disgrace your wife’ , ‘give up my seat to elderly woman’. He find his body a temple, the idea of temple always brings a clean and a secure place in one’s mind. The poet seems to be having some kind of Lung Disease as he mentions that he has to take carcinogens. The feeling of jealousy in the poet can be seen in the fact that he doesn’t want his cousins to have all the success of life whether it may be in monetary terms or non monetary terms. The Buddhist friend of the poet seems to be smoking from a very long time and has been suffering from lung diseases ‘dying from alcoholism’, ‘blue smoke exhales from small chest’ .The poem ends with the poets beautiful mood who loves to have good breakfast on the beach and to exhale the terrible facts of life to forget everything when he feels the sand of the Divine Floridian Coast. Conclusion Overall the poet has defined life in many different ways and has showed the bad and good experiences of life. His dependable moods, activities his great and worst feelings he felt and the different people he met throughout his life. The poet has been thinking deep about life, his perspectives in all the four poems was the same but described in a different way in all four of them. In ‘Lents District’ he compared the lives of two cities and how different they are (Lents, New York) being in the same country, and how different their viewpoint of life is. In ‘Trouble’ the poet discussed of big Celebrities who were so fed up of life that they brought themselves to death in several ways. The ‘Song Dance’ was a pleasant poem and detailed life in a different manner, showing How life could change if a person is in love with someone or nature or the world a person lives in, and that mistakes could be done but anyone doesn’t have to worry about it. In ‘We are not Temples’ life was discussed in a different manner pointing out some bad events but also contrasts with some good events, where the poet ends with a positive ending that beyond worrying there are some things in life which can rejoice your life and would make you forget the worries. Therefore, by going through the poems, the poet unhide the inner feelings about life some good and some bad. References PBS. "Matthew Dickman Poetry Everywhere PBS." Poetry Everywhere. Garrison Kielor, n.d. Web. 6 Dec. 2013. Ruhlmann, William. "Black Sabbath | Biography." AllMusic. All Music, n.d. Web. 6 Dec. 2013. Dickman, Matthew "Trouble : The New Yorker." The New Yorker. The New Yorker, 11 Aug. 2008. Web. 6 Dec. 2013. Ronaldmetellus. "The Ron Blog: Read It. Stop Weeping.: The Roots and Matthew Dickman."The Ron Blog: Read It. Stop Weeping. ronaldmetellus., n.d. Web. 6 Dec. 2013. Read More