Poetry. Drama. Identical twins Michael and Matthew Dickman once invented their own language. Now they have invented an exhilarating book of poem-plays about the fifty states. Pointed, comic, and surreal, these one-page vignettes feature unusual staging and an eclectic cast of characters-landforms, lobsters, and historical figures including Duke Ellington, Sacajawea, Judy Garland, and Kenneth Koch, the avant-garde spirit informing this book introduced by playwright John Guare.

"Their verse...is strikingly different. Michael's poems are interior, fragmentary, and austere, often stripped down to single-word lines; they seethe with incipient violence. Matthew's are effusive, ecstatic, and all-embracing, spilling over with pop-cultural references and exuberant carnality."—The New Yorker

Michael Dickman and Matthew Dickman are identical twins who were born and raised in Portland, Oregon. Michael received the 2010 James Laughlin Award for his second collection FLIES (Copper Canyon Press, 2011). Matthew won the prestigious APR/Honickman Award for his debut volume, ALL-AMERICAN POEMS (Copper Canyon Press, 2008). Together, they co-authored 50 AMERICAN PLAYS (Copper Canyon Press, 2012).