The MAX Center is open for tutoring M-F, 9 a.m.-4:30 p.m., Sun-Th, 7 -10 p.m. Visit us at Kagin Commons 1st floor!

Midwest Writing Centers Association

International Writing Centers Association

My blog

Samples of my creative work

Curriculm vita

Email Michael

Michael Dickel

I am the director of the MacalesterAcademic Excellence (MAX) Center and writing counselor. I also teach College Writing, usually during Spring Semester. My poetry, short stories, essays, and articles have appeared in literary and professional journals. I currently serve as treasurer for the Midwest Writing Centers Association (MWCA) and as the MWCA liaison to the board of the International Writing Centers Association.

I recently spent three months in Israel, during which time the violence in Lebanon and Northern Israel began and came to a ceasefire. There are pictures and short essays available on my blog. More of my photos and other samples of my creative work are available online as well.

A poem

Peace requires something…

… far more difficult than revenge or merely turning the other cheek; it requires empathizing with the fears and unmet needs that provide the impetus for people to attack each other. —Marshall B. Rosenberg

The night swing takes you back and forth, laughing and talking
about friends, lunch, the joys of playgrounds in the evening
as we slide away from the war in the north and slip back again,
the metronome of your swing a faster tempo than our recurring
theme and variations. The news tonight reports ketyushas in Haifa
and bombing raids in Beirut as the clock clicks slowly toward
the promised ceasefire and we plan pasta and compare TV-news
scenes while dreading the call of the list of the dead, the dread
of the dead a laugh track cannot unfold as it presses and creases
against our naked longing for quiet, quiet, quite quiet nights.
On swings. Recalling. before. Recreating. after. Requesting.
our lives in a blender shake of lemon and mint and cool,
cold ice. Three weeks, now four, now six how? love has grown
with the days of war. how? we feel this deeply after only three,
four, now only six weeks of knowing each other? Nights without
sleep. When we are seventy let’s make love all night as though
we are young again and there is peace and people don’t die.
for words. for land. for names. for country. gods. but hold. on-
to. each. other. alone. together. emphasizing. fear. and desire.

—Michael Dickel

Macalester College · 1600 Grand Avenue, St. Paul, MN 55105  USA · 651-696-6000
Comments and questions to webmaster@macalester.edu