Funds for Bookworm are provided in part by Lannin Foundation.

You are a human animal.

You are a very special breed.

Or you are the only animal.

Who can think, who can reason, who can read.

From KCRW, Santa Monica, I'm Michael Silverblatt, and this is Bookworm.

Today my guest is Matthew Dickman, whose book of poetry, All-American Poem, has been published

by the American Poetry Review Press.

It was the winner of a first book award and the winner as well of the Kate Tufts Award.

Now, I would describe Matthew Dickman as sort of a loved child of Frank O'Hara, Kenneth Koch, with Sam Allen Ginsberg, and Charles Bukowski, perhaps, thrown in.

And it seems like the world of the poems has that kind of Kenneth Koch exuberance.

You know, you get the feeling the first time you read Coke

that he's so excited that the English language won't contain him,

and he starts using those ekes and tweps and bongs.

And I assume that Coke was important to you, yeah?

He became important to me.

The interesting thing about me reading Kenneth Koch

is that I started reading him after, oh,

at least 50% of this book was already written.

I had had an important conversation with someone who asked me, you know, what kind of poetry that I was reading, and I said, oh, I'm reading Seshwamuwoosh at the time.

And I was reading Anna Swur, so I was reading these Polish poets.

And then a couple American poets who are fabulous as well.

...