Dick of the Dead

by Rachel Loden

Poetry. DICK OF THE DEAD is an investigation into American sexual and political consciousness, and at its eccentric heart lies the undead and uneasy 37th president of the United States, Richard M. Nixon. Also sifting the evidence (or implicated in its findings) are an experimental subject in a pink tutu, a Finnish gravedigger, an exiled Anglo-Saxon poet, and an industrious gang of fairies. Loden's Nixon is never merely the consummate villain deplored by his critics nor the tragic visionary statesman acclaimed by his apologists. He is nearly a force of nature: throwing off his gravestone in the garden at Yorba Linda, calling up his troops, his family, and even his black and white cocker spaniel, he is ready to smash death by any means necessary, to beat back a sea of pretenders and retake Washington by storm. DICK OF THE DEAD is a trip through the underworld of the American psyche, much funnier and ultimately much more serious than any one book of poems has a right to be.

Genres: Poetry

93 pages, Paperback

First published May 15, 2009

Reviews

[James Murphy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Overall I think this is a difficult book. Difficult as obscure, as cuddling up to the surreal. And it's with that tone that the poems raise up spectres of old modernists. Many of them are about death, death on a grand scale. One of my favorites, "Old Possum," alludes to an image of Eliot's of those undone by death. But today they're not crossing London Bridge en masse but are listed in Google and insurance databases. And there are poems about Nixon, too, the Dick of the title. Many of these poems become, then, political poetry. Not of political protest. Because Nixon's dark, insecure spirit is shown hanging over our age and influencing our own boogeymen--Loden points out Cheney, Rumsfeld, and Dubya--the protest in these poems is muffled by dread, disquiet, fear. She does give us a glimmer of brightness, though. The final poem, "My Secret Flag," describes stitching hope like making a huge quilt. I like this book. It's difficult but I like its challenge. These are poems not so dependent on the meaning of their specific parts as on the tenor they sink into your consciousness. She brings Eliot to mind, and I realize I like her in the same way, that the obscurities appeal and will begin to have meaning and show you the world in a particular hue and reality you can lay your hands on.

Rereading in July 2018. I remember the dark wit of these poems and think they're something I need now.

[Rick · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'm usually kind of irritated when a contemporary poet writes a sonnet (proving it can still be done?), but if it's on the death of Fellini I apparently melt.

Anyway, Loden is ambitious. And she is an honorable man. And she makes politics funny. Somebody's got to. And her phrases are delicious. If making Dick (Cheney as much as Nixon) into a tragic lyric hero is what it takes. If a pantoum is what it takes. It's rare that I read a poem (rarer still a book of poems) and think (repeatedly) "What???"

George Constanza as a Lorca hero? What is going on here?

[Justin Martin · Rating 3 out of 5]

This poetry views Nixon and general and Watergate specifically from a slant angle. He's dead, and he largely narrates the set, which allows for anything and everything, subject-wise, to creep into the sticky, tricky Nixon voice whose equivocating rage Loden channels well. This results in some pretty successful fireworks - you don't really know Nixon's guilt until you've heard it via the singing axe in a fairy-tale- but sometimes, she oversimplifies and overreaches, particularly in conversations between Dick Nixon and Dick Cheney. Doesn't fail as badly as it should judging by the aim, doesn't succeed as wildly as it should given virtuoso early poems.

[Pam · Rating 5 out of 5]

Absolutely brilliant.

[Crag Hill · Rating 5 out of 5]

Look for my review in the next Galatea Resurrects.

[Jeff · Rating 5 out of 5]

http://www.brooklynrail.org/2009/09/b...

[Mary-Marcia · Rating 4 out of 5]

I revel in the twists and turns of it's wry wordplay; a joy to read tricky & snarky and poignant.

[Jeffrey Wright · Rating 5 out of 5]

Aspiration and despair. My review in the Rail:
http://www.brooklynrail.org/2009/09/b...

[Stefanie]

"We wanted chaos speared upon a slide, not this / embarrassment of evidence / that doesn't fit, this mad / insurgent protoplasm moved by its predicament."

[Geof Huth · Rating 4 out of 5]

Full review hidden right here.