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Free poetry reading by twin brothers Matthew and Michael Dickman

Matthew and Michael Dickman, poets and twin brothers, will give a free reading at 6 p.m. Wed., March 2, at the Woodruff Library on the Emory University campus.

Matthew Dickman is the author of All-American Poem, winner of the 2009 Oregon Book Award for Poetry and the APR/Honickman First Book Prize. Often referencing pop culture and expressing lust and yearning, his poems have appeared in The New Yorker, Tin House, The American Poetry Review and other publications. He is the recipient of many fellowships and awards, including a fellowship from the Michener Center for Writers.

Michael Dickman, author of The End of the West, writes poems that document the bright desires and all-too-common sufferings of modern times: spiritual longing, drug abuse, surviving violence, and lost friends. His honors include several fellowships and awards, including a Hodder Fellowship from Princeton University. His poems have appeared in The New Yorker, The American Poetry Review, Narrative Magazine, Tin House and other publications. His second collection of poems, Flies, won the James Laughlin Award and is forthcoming in May 2011.

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Born and raised in the working class Lents neighborhood of Portland, Oregon, the identical twins have very different styles of poetry. John Marshall of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer wrote of their poems: “The twins’ work evidences little kinship in subject matter or style. Matthew’s jumps around with free associations, surprising cultural and popular references, and much humor. Michael’s are shorter lyric poems on deeper concerns, thoughtful and philosophical.”

“The Dickman brothers are the future of poetry,” says poet Kevin Young, curator of literary collections and the Raymond Danowski Poetry Library at the Emory Libraries’ Manuscript, Archives, and Rare Book Library (MARBL). “Their work is vital and unique – Matthew’s fulsome lines are filled with praise and paradox, a 21st-century Whitman, while Michael’s ‘little prayers’ echo with themes of loss and a stark sense of song.”

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The brothers have been profiled in Poets & Writers and The New Yorker. They also had small roles in Steven Spielberg’s 2002 film Minority Report.

The reading will take place in the Jones Room on Level 3 of the Woodruff Library, 540 Asbury Cir., Atlanta, GA 30322. A selection of books and a limited-edition broadside will be available for purchase and signing at the reading.

The event is part of the Raymond Danowski Poetry Library Reading Series, sponsored by MARBL and the Creative Writing Program. The theme for the 2010-2011 season is “Duets.” Next in the series will be Toi Derricotte and Cornelius Eady, poets and founders of Cave Canem, a nonprofit organization fostering the talents of black poets, who will give a free public reading on March 29 at 6 p.m. in the Jones Room.

For more information, call 404.727.6887, visit http://marbl.library.emory.edu/news-events or e-mail marbl@emory.edu. Parking is available in the Fishburne Deck; for directions, visit http://arts.emory.edu/village/map.html.

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