Troubled by 'Trouble'

So, I'm going to try to avoid the long essay monster and limit myself to just a short diatribe.

I really, Really, REALLY do not like Matthew Dickman's poem 'Trouble'.

I knew I didn't like it from my first reading, but couldn't say why. After two subsequent readings, and a little research to confirm a few suspicions, I can now say that I dislike it both as a piece of poetry (in the sense of the mechanics of the piece) and as a poem (in the sense of the message it conveys).

With regard to the mechanics, I dislike it because of it's poor usage of free verse. I understand that rhyme and metre are to be ignored, but find the lack of metaphor, or even simile, well, let's just say that without these two, at the very least, a free verse poem really might as well just be a piece of prose -- lest we forget, poetry and song are intrinsically linked, both are meant to be sung.

As examples of what I mean, here's a link to a poem by Saul Williams:
http://lyrics.astraweb.com/display/930/saul_williams..amethyst_rock_star..coded_language.html
[a quick note: there is a transcription error, "...crushed apples and pears..." should read "...crushed apples and peers..."]

and a more well-known, almost cliché, example by Allen Ginsburg:
http://www.wussu.com/poems/agh.htm

Now, mechanics being addressed, let's get to the meat.

Dickman's device in 'Trouble' is to juxtapose a ramshackle list of suicides with the rambling thoughts of a mind that seems to be trying too hard to have depth, "I sometimes wonder about the inner lives of polar bears." The persons listed are actors and authors, poets and play-writes, even the odd philosopher, sovereign, and daredevil. Some attained greatness, others simply existed near it.

About halfway through the poem, he presents us with a detail that misleadingly suggests what the poem is all about:
[Fentanyl is a very strong narcotic painkiller] My brother opened
thirteen Fentanyl patches and stuck them on his body
until it wasn't his body anymore.

I'll come back to that in a moment, but first I want to mention the end of the poem; the place where Dickman really makes his point:
[Referring to Larry Walters, the daredevil from above.] He was a man who flew.
He shot himself in the heart. In the morning I get out of bed, I brush my teeth,
I wash my face, I get dressed in the clothes I like best.
I want to be good to myself.

Now, if we take this poem solely at surface value, it's message seems rather straight-forward, namely: All of these great/near-great people committed suicide, so I try to console myself by looking for the things that are good and beautiful in life and taking them for what they are. But that's NOT what he's saying.

His brother didn't kill himself! (and to his credit he never said otherwise, but he certainly implied it.) But if that is the case, then what is the point of the poem?

I think the point of the poem is this:
All of these people either knew or touched greatness, yet all of them chose to commit suicide. I can't understand this, because there are so many simple things to take pleasure in. We must look on the bright side and be good to ourselves.

And that's why I think this poem sucks, because Dickman dismisses everyone he mentions. Of course he does, he can't relate. He hasn't even suffered the experience of having a loved one take their own life (though he implies may have at least experienced dealing with the attempt, I couldn't find anything to suggest this was the case). His poem reeks of optimism.

Now, I know that many of us treat optimism as if it were the ultimate ideal, but I would like to point out that optimism and pessimism are two sides of the same delusion. Neither point of view is realistic, because both are dualistic. Reality is multiplicity. But I would also argue that out of the two the optimists are the worse, because they often lack empathy, much less self-awareness -- never seeming to grasp that, to someone who is suffering, "Look on the bright side..." might as well be, "I really can't be bothered with what you are going through right now."

At least the pessimists would commiserate.
-dennis