Michael Magee

In "My Angie Dickenson," Michael Magee explores the possibility of unstructured structure. HIs collection of strategically placed diction and space creates a wide open array of poems. Magee's use of stanzas and lines gives the context of almost rigid structure in comparison to several other 21st century poets. His poems are outlined and spaced in a way that makes them seem that they must be read in a certain way. However, after second and third reading, the reader should find something new every single time.

In one poem, I actually found Magee commenting on structure as a whole in society. The first and last lines say,

"Faith is a prison dentist,
The most legitimate cop,
Studying a riding crop.
“Try it more pissed” — —
Goons taping a gurney
Roots from the Attorney.

...

What’s a democracy?
Some tepid Hind in the ebbs,
Licking heavenly true celebs,
As totally as a star — —
Ritalin for you kids,
And Zoloft for you are — —"

Magee shares his harsh thoughts about the social structures of religion, law, politics, and medicine. He uses language that paints an elliptical portrait of conventional society and undermines it with language like, "The most legitimate cop," "Goons taping a gurney," and "Some tepid Hind in the ebbs." Magee mocks structure by using it on broad, unconnected words that are left to the readers imagination to make coherent.

Magee is successful in using his poems to tease readers into imagining words in different contexts than they are conventionally seen. I was struck by Magee's poetry in the meaning that I would find in poems after several readings. In most if not all cases I left the poem with a different emotion than when I first read it.