Abstract
The baby-faced, American Dickman twins rolled into Manchester on a Tuesday - and left that same Tuesday, one stop on their English-city- hopping promotional tour (London, Manchester, and a petrol station loo or two in between), touting their dual-authored Faber release, the red, white and blue tête-bêche (flip-book) Brother. Matthew has a bit of a squeeky voice and tatts on his arms; Michael is more nasal-voiced and may also have tatts, but his sleeves are rolled down this evening; Michael's jeans are ripped, purposefully, and his blazer is brown corduroy with a sort of superhero button on the left lapel; Matthew's jeans are rolled, his New Balance 998 Trainers are very clean, his NYC baseball cap is half-cocked (he takes the cap off for the reading, gentleman that he is, which leaves him with a bit of hathead); Michael wears green socks and a red check shirt; Matthew has a light blue dress shirt on, sleeves rolled (see above) and ankle socks; Matthew's lines are long; Michael's lines are short; Michael teaches at Princeton; Matthew is poetry editor at the American lit mag, Tin House; Matthew is the fun, accessible one; Michael is the serious, academic one; George is the quiet one; Ringo is the drummer. Faber, their publisher, appear to have found here a poetry book with a talking point (suicide...), part of a recent flush of collections that might access an audience beyond poetry's traditional readership by being topical (that readership is, as far as I can tell, limited to between three-hundred and one thousand people per country - size of country making no difference).