Matthew Dickman wrote a poem called “Coffee” for his 2008 collection, All-American Poem. The poem, like its title suggests, explores the production of coffee and all the work it takes to get those coffee beans into our paper cups. The same paper cups that we discard soon after. However, the poem does not only talk about coffee. Through the lens of America’s favorite beverage comes a compelling commentary on our society, existence, life and death, and perhaps most of all, grief.
At the same time in 2008, when I was in second grade, I watched my dad drink coffee. He would say he needed his coffee every morning, and would shell out whatever amount of money was necessary to get some. While I sipped on my Hawaiian Punch, I thought he was delusional, and after nearly throwing up the first time he let me try some, it only solidified that thought.
He’d fill up a travel mug to take on the road before setting off for the day, leaving me in the kitchen with my Eggo pancakes. An hour or so later, my mom would drop me off at school which kicked off what was, at the time, the worst use of six hours imaginable.
In our second grade poetry unit, we wrote acrostics and haiku. The teacher gave us lists upon lists of rules and regulations for how our seven and eight year old hands could write those infamous three lines. Each year, they’d add something new to the mix, like end rhymes and similes. I think about it a lot, and yet I hated every moment. By my senior year of high school I thought haiku and sonnets were the only acceptable poems, and that each had rigid sets of rules to follow in order to do it “correctly.” Therefore, I was not a fan of poetry.
I was wrong. About everything.
Not long after I started college, I began to change my mind about both coffee and poetry. The weight of the world got heavier as I got older. I felt hopeless and useless most of the time, and I was in a perpetual state of mental turmoil. I went to bed tired, woke up tired, went to school tired, and went home tired. Nothing fixed it. I tried all of the energy drinks (they all sucked), tried sodas and juices to no avail, and eventually found myself back at square one. Coffee.
In the beginning, I would get coffee with all kinds of flavors, sugars, and creams, just to make drinking it easier. What surprised me, though, was how it felt. The heat coming through the mug and onto my hands alongside the warmth I felt in my stomach after each sip was a comfort I hadn’t felt before. Coffee was a much needed hug for my mind. The anxieties of the morning, the weight of the day ahead, all felt manageable. It all finally made sense. Why my dad needed it, why it was so influential. It all clicked. Was coffee a cure all? No, not even close. But it helped me feel okay for a few minutes in the morning, and that’s better than nothing.
At the same time, I had been working with an English professor who often shared pieces of poetry with me. However, this was not the same poetry that I learned about. These poems had no rhymes, no structure, and they were often much longer than three lines. He introduced me to pieces like John Ashbery’s “This Room,” that says so much in such a short amount of time, or Ocean Vuong’s “Ode to Masturbation,” which employs erratic line breaks and form to expand upon the story being told in the lines themselves.
I’ve continued to drink coffee and read poetry, and I never really thought about combining the two until that same professor sent me Matthew Dickman’s “Coffee.” This poem reshaped all my thoughts about poetry, life, loss, and even the simple act of drinking a cup of coffee. See, the poem might be about coffee on its surface, and below that there’s a very poignant commentary on consumerism, but at it’s core the poem is about the suicide of Dickman’s brother, Darin.
The poem carefully places subtle pieces of context into lines spent reflecting on a Frank O’Hara-esque walk around the city. It bounces gracefully from idea to idea, from thought to observation to description, all while providing complex layers of emotions culminating in the chilling, yet beautiful finale to the poem. Dickman writes,
Once, I had a brother
who used to sit and drink his coffee black, smoke
his cigarettes and be quiet for a moment
before his brain turned its Armadas against him, wanting to burn down
his cities and villages, before grief
became his capital with its one loyal flag and his face,
perhaps only his beautiful left eye, shimmered on the surface of his Americano
like a dark star.
While separate, poetry and coffee represent small indulgences in our lives. When combined, however, they mark a moment in which Dickman can share and understand his grief. In an interview with The Guardian, he states, “The only way I could really talk about his suicide was in a poem,” despite the poems not coming for a long time after Darin’s death. He explains that neither himself nor his brother Michael “are poets who believe you experience something and you immediately need to write about it, or it needs to be a poem at all.” In time though, the words came, and eventually so too did the healing.
Poetry can be many things, it changes its size and shape to fit in wherever it’s needed, and it is needed. Coffee can do the same. They could be something that warms the mind in the morning, or they could be a reminder of a lost loved one. They could be a bitter liquid in a paper cup that’s left next to a park bench, or they could be shared after a long day of work in a gesture of love. They could be enjoyed alone, or they could contribute to a bond shared between father and son. Poetry and coffee both have general definitions and understandings, yet they can and will always be so much more to those who open up to them.
Fortunately, I discovered the comfort that lies within both coffee and poetry. My life hasn’t completely changed and my depression isn’t “solved” because of it, but I’d be lying if I told you it didn’t help. I’ve heard that coffee has an acquired taste, that as you grow older your taste buds won’t care as much and you can finally drink coffee without wincing. I’d argue it’s something more though, something that as you grow older it’s harder to find. It’s not always about the flavor, it’s about the moments of solace it can provide.
Featured image credited to Kelly Sikkema via Unsplash.
