The End of the West

Michael Dickman; THE END OF THE WEST; Copper Canyon (Poetry) $15.00 ISBN: 9781556592898

Dix has served Newcastle sport loyally down the years - he was chairman of the Sports Council from 1977 until 1992, and returned as secretary of the newly named Sport Newcastle in 2000.

"Still there is a lot to pray to on earth" one poem asserts. "Im having a good time humming along to everything I can still / remember back there" another says. Dickmans poems carry their dark subjects lightly. The poems hold themselves back; they are the audience to a Hollywood movie. Yet the movie is true a real childhood the Old West still alive in the speaker. The mother is all ages; she is Annie Oakley and Dale Evans living in the California life she chose where children ride ponies and wear little boots and little holsters. And the speakers childhood friends are waiting in the old neighborhood "shooting heroin / getting blind and / calling // my name." The book ends with the brilliant long title poem a coda in which "Heaven is what you think it will be." Throughout Dickman creates this heaven but finally also reminds us of whats missing: "the whisper / of bodies // Trees / Water / Light // We wont do this again." This is the real thing this immediate world that is no ideal world. Indeed who would dare end a book this way the neighborhood guys whispering from the corner "You had this shit coming. Youre going to be sorry"? But were not. The readers are not sorry at all. (April)