John Matthias

John Matthias Poems

John Matthias Biography

John Matthias is an American poet. He was born in Columbus, Ohio, in 1941 and attended the Ohio State University and Stanford University. At Stanford he studied under the poet and critic Yvor Winters, but did not conform to Winters' stringent anti-modernist position. In fact, Matthias became deeply interested in modernism, especially English modernism, which he came to know well during many years of residence in England. His peers at Stanford included two future poets laureate of the United States, Robert Hass and Robert Pinsky, as well as the poets Ken Fields, James McMichael, and John Peck. Influences include John Berryman, Ezra Pound, and perhaps most importantly, the Anglo-Welsh poet David Jones, on whose work Matthias has edited two books. Matthias' books include: Bucyrus, (1970); Turns (1975); Crossing (1979); Northern Summer (1984); A Gathering of Ways (1991); Beltane at Aphelion (1995); Swimming at Midnight (1995); Pages (2000); "Working Progress, Working Title" (2002); and New Selected Poems (2004) and Kedging (2007). In 2004 an issue of Samizdat (poetry magazine) was devoted to commentary on his work. Major scholarly works on Matthias' poetry include the books Word Play Place: Essays on the Poetry of John Matthias (1998) edited by Robert Archambeau and The Salt Companion to John Matthias (2011) edited by Joe Francis Doerr. There is a substantial chapter on Matthias' poetry in Archambeau's study Laureates and Heretics (University of Notre Dame Press, 2010). Matthias excels in the writing of longer poems, and works in a new version of the modernist idiom. He has also translated the work of several Swedish poets, including Jesper Svenbro, and the Serbian epic poem The Battle of Kosovo.)

The Best Poem Of John Matthias

After "Las Formas Puras," After Lorca

In memory of Anthony Kerrigan

The pure shapes of things shake and are fall
ing under the cry of bajo el cri cri
and chirping of the six margaritas
daisies that I loved but now know deflower
when the men bent upon murdering me bend
down in cabinets and on cliffs and in cafes
where some flamenco guitarist breaks his fingers
on the grave accents / / / breaks
his fingers on the acute

\
hunting now
even in the graves under walls of tall iglesias
the well where I am not hides from
those who dug the gold from wisdom teeth
of the wise and dig it still and dig it
also from between my thin skeleton's bowed ribs
but Ah

\
will not find me any more but less
than six, the moon, de pronto, loss itself
disarticulated bones in hiding place pues encore
my absence from I am
comprendo nonetheless the names
of pure shapes of things that shake and are fall
ing all loss los nombres under cry cry
the pure shaping things out of their somersault
out of themselves

John Matthias Comments