For Immediate Release
Contact: Jacob Abrahamson, [email protected]
Press Release: The World behind it, Chaos released by wv? eBook Press
1 April 2009
Michael Dickel, poet, photographer, and digital artist, announces the release of his much-anticipated poetry & visual art collection from wv? eBook Press in March 2009. Dickel's prize-winning work has appeared in literary journals, art books, & anthologies for over 20 years. This debut book magnificently explores chaos & mystery. Please consider reviewing this new book.
Book Title: The World behind it, Chaos
Author: Michael Dickel
Publisher: wv? eBook Press (http://www.whyvandalism.com)
Release Date: April 1, 2009
Price: Free ($0.00) download
Formats: Flash Projector (no plug-in needed), Flash online (requires Flash plug-in for browser), Adobe Acrobat (PDF) download

The World behind it, Chaos
A collection of poetry, photography and digital art by Michael Dickel.

Michael Dickel’s poetry has appeared in small-press literary magazines for over twenty years. His photography and artwork have been published in art books, literary / arts journals, and online journals for around five years. Most recently, two of his poems received recognition through the international Reuben Rose Poetry Competition.

This unique collection brings together the best of his poetry with visual art that both complements and complicates the reading. Artistically laid out, The World behind it, Chaos provides both visual and intellectual provocations towards sensing both the wonders of our world and the chaos that lies just beneath our lives. Beginning with a sharp intake of breath (“Leaping Deer”) and ending with the crumbling of the present into sand (“Return of the Sea”), the poetry arcs through life, politics, nature, mysticism, and human relationships. The images spark from that arc, creating moments of reflection to absorb the words, or creating their own visual poem to enhance the “text” of the book.

From the Foreword (written by the editors of why vandalism?):

“Michael Dickel, in The World behind it, Chaos, reveals life’s chaos in all the dark, hidden places, as well as often unacknowledged order that stares us right in the face: the pastoral beauty of nature; the alarming and sometimes ugly; the knowing; the quiet yearnings of the human soul; memory, nostalgia, love; the stagnation or inability of humanity to see clearly or grow.”

The poems themselves range from the quiet lyric to experimental prose poems to surrealistic-imagistic explorations. One long poem near the center of the book (“The Morning News”) collapses time while chanting TV news, interspersing quotidian activity, joining events across decades, all the time swimming in the chaotic insanity of megalomania in cult and government leaders. We emerge, as readers, on the other side into a theoretical world of materiality and ideas (“Materiality,” “electronic transfer,” and “language you/me”) that merges into a spiritual and sensual world (as in “Theosophical Summer Evening, 1972”) that eventually encounters a pragmatic world of clipping coupons and raising children (“Still Kalamazoo, Mother’s Day at the Airport”). Yet, this pragmatic world still contains wonderment and chaos side by side, even as the voice of the poet grounds itself in nature (“Renewal”).

In the end, the seas overtake even the Midwest ordinariness of life, a city collapses into ruin, and we are reminded that history moves on, “the foundation collapses, pieces of brick grind into sand” (“Return of the Sea”). Yet, somehow, it is not a pessimistic message. Overall, the poems and images suggest the place of the individual, the importance of choosing a direction (any direction) even in the face of collapse, and the mystery of life as revelation: “all simmering, composting toward a distilled memory / to sip against the coming chill” (“After the Frost”).

Michael Dickel is a poet and photographer with degrees in psychology, creative writing, and English literature from the University of Minnesota. He taught writing at various U.S. colleges and Universities for nearly 20 years, and now teaches at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

About Michael Dickel’s Poetry

“I love the way Michael Dickel’s poetry mixes eros and kabbalah with politicsbeautiful, disturbing, soaring.” —Adeena Karasick, poet, cultural theorist and performance artist, and the award-winning author of six books of poetry and poetic theory, most recently The House That Hijack Built (Talon Books 2004).

Dickel’s poem “…is at once a poem of erotic love addressed to the beloved; a celebration of landscape, nature and fertility; an implicit reverencing of Jewish tradition; and, above all, a universally human beckoning towards peace and joy. My personal reading of [“Oasis”] yields hints of a mystical interpretation; the invocation of Tikkun, in the tradition of Isaac Luria and other Kabbalistic masters.” —Richard (Berengarten) Burns, poet and organizer of the Cambridge Literary Festival, Bye-Fellow at Downing College, Cambridge and Preceptor at Corpus Christi College, and author of more than 20 books.

Michael Dickel’s Home Page: http://web.mac.com/Michael_Dickel_
Michael Dickel’s Blog: http://blog.myspace.com/MHDPoet
Michael Dickel is available on FaceBook and Myspace.

Contact: Jacob Abrahamson, [email protected]

Recent poetry, photos, and digital art available online (journals with an editorial process):

“After Last Night’s Coffee,” “Getting the Love You Want,” “In Jerusalem, July 2006,” and “Peace requires something…” Poems. Zone Magazine: International Forum for Experimental Poetry and Prose, Online September 2006 http://www.zonefornone.blogspot.com/
“Autumn Milkweed.” Poem. Abramelin: the Journal of Poetry and Magick. E.V. 2:1, Winter 2007 http://e-n-v.org/abramelin/Winter2007/autumnmilkweed.html
“Bone and Rock,” and “Night Visitor.” Images. West Goes South Literary Journal. Issue #1. 2009. http://www.westgoessouth.com/West_Goes_South_Literary_Journal_Charlott_and_Los_Angeles_Poetry,_Short_Fiction_and_Art/Issue_01.html
“Detail from Mount Meron.” Images Zeek: A Jewish Journal of Thought and Culture. March 2007 (online edition). http://www.zeek.net/703fiction/
“Indeterminacy.” Image and Poem. why vanadalism? February 2007. http://whyvandalism.com/issue_feb07.html#3
“Israel Tapestry.” Image. why vandalism? September 2007. http://www.whyvandalism.com/issue_sep07.html#8
“only the smoke.” Image and Poem. why vandalism? June 2007. http://www.whyvandalism.com/issue_jun07.html#8
“Oswald and Dahmer at the Corner Bar,” “Scene in Passing,” and “Nightmare.” Poems. why vandalism? August 2007. http://www.whyvandalism.com/issue_aug07.html#1
“Prayer.” Cover Image Abramelin: the Journal of Poetry and Magick. E.V. 2:1, Winter 2007 http://e-n-v.org/abramelin/Winter2007/cover.html
“Safed Pottery.” Image Fotógrafos En La Calle. (Street Photographers). Buenos Aires, Argentina: Centro de Informacion y Documentacion de Israel para America Latina. 2009. Available also as a downloadable PDF: http://www.cidipal.org/fotografos.pdf
“Six Photos.” Images. Abramelin: the Journal of Poetry and Magick. E.V. 2:1, Winter 2007 http://e-n-v.org/abramelin/Winter2007/photography.html
“This Poem.” Poem. why vandalism? February-March 2008. http://www.whyvandalism.com/issue_mar08.html#21
“Twenty-Two Lines.” Poem. Poetry Midwest # 22, End of 2008 (Spring / Summer 2008 and Fall 2008 combined). Available also as a downloadable PDF: http://www.poetrymidwest.org
Press release online (with image of cover): http://web.mac.com/michael_dickel/iWeb/Dekel%20Photographer%20and%20Poet/News.html

###