Poetry. DICK OF THE DEAD is an investigation into American sexual and political consciousness, and at its eccentric heart lies the undead and uneasy 37th president of the United States, Richard M. Nixon. Also sifting the evidence (or implicated in its findings) are an experimental subject in a pink tutu, a Finnish gravedigger, an exiled Anglo-Saxon poet, and an industrious gang of fairies. Loden's Nixon is never merely the consummate villain deplored by his critics nor the tragic visionary statesman acclaimed by his apologists. He is nearly a force of nature: throwing off his gravestone in the garden at Yorba Linda, calling up his troops, his family, and even his black and white cocker spaniel, he is ready to smash death by any means necessary, to beat back a sea of pretenders and retake Washington by storm. DICK OF THE DEAD is a trip through the underworld of the American psyche, much funnier and ultimately much more serious than any one book of poems has a right to be.