Michael Madsen

Re: His Poetry compilation:

This is the only authorized, comprehensive compilation of Michael Madsen's poetry available anywhere. A "must have" for any Madsen fan!

He's a throw-back to the true spirit of the Beats...An Anachronistic Beat.

Madsen is a grand storyteller as you follow him through his wild times at the Chateau Marmont in Hollywood to the rain-soaked streets of Luxembourg to the historic western film locations in Durango, Mexico where John Wayne's ranch used to be, to a near-death experience in Bucharest.

However, this book is not all about the "road to excess." His family, his friends, his pets, and those personal, evanescent moments as he has observed and recorded them, are all captured in this 10 Year Anniversary Edition. He also possesses a shrewd sense of humor.

A veritable feast for the eyes, "The Complete Poetic Works of Michael Madsen," offers many rare photographs-- there is the original flyer from the Steppenwolf Theatre where Madsen began his acting career included in this book, along with over 50 other personal photos on and off the set.

Rexroth, Kerouac, Ginsberg, Bukowski would all agree that "those poets of immensity" have got nothing on Michael Madsen.

The Poems:

DALE

I thought about driving a race car for a living when I was in the strength of my youth,
But now it’s just a goofy idea, but there once was a brave man who did it,

Did it better than anyone.

His name was Dale.

And ever since that fateful afternoon, when he unhooked at over 200 mph
On his way to wherever he was meant to go.

I have never done it myself on my to whatever is left of my life
Without thinking of him

 M.M. June 2011

(Excerpt Source--Courtesy of Michael Madsen)

Critique:

Dale by Michael Madsen is a self-reflective prose poem written in a narrative style but wrought with sub-text and underlying meaning. Dale Earnhardt, the Dale of the title, represents death, of course, on a surface level. For Madsen, however, it represents life, a life unfulfilled yet a full life. Madsen heads home to a family, to a house inhabited by things and creatures familiar to him as part of his home, but on the last part of his drive home, he unbuckles his seat belt (the same act Dale performed ritually as he ended a race on the final mile, the act that many say killed him) and faces his mortality, for how many times did Dale perform this act and NOT die—every time but the last.

This is the language of poetry, the common voice where meaning can unite life and death in the same thought. It is this voice that speaks to us from behind the words that are written. Michael Madsen understands this. When we hear that voice, we, too, understand.

Christmas by Michael Madsen

I worked at a Christmas tree lot sometime in the early '70s.
The exact year I don't remember, and who really gives a shit.
Anyway, my boss was a real prick who cashed in on X-mas every year
and could care less about my skinny, freezing ass-
"Smile," he said, "You got to smile more."
Something I'd heard before and since many times;
I guess people like me better smiling
which is why I don't very much.

(Excerpt Source--Courtesy of Michael Madsen)

Critique:

Using the poetic language of hidden meaning, Michael Madsen gives us Christmas, a poem that on the surface be appear to be about the festive holiday, but as we’ve seen in Dale, his narrative voice describes more than what it shows. In the poem, Madsen reminisces about his youth, of one particular Christmas Eve when he worked on a lot selling trees to last minute shoppers. To follow the main conceit, we must understand the merging of elements (in Dale, it was life and death); here it is hate and love.

Here Michael Madsen shows us again his talent for merging opposites in a narrative voice that hides subtle meanings. He loves his family enough to steal them a tree, but he does so under the hate that the tree represents for him. That final smile may as well be a sneer. You can almost hear the words, “Merry Christmas, you prick. I've got your smile right here.”