After All: Last Poems [Hardcover]

William Matthews (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 10, 1998

This is the touchingly entitled collection of poems William Matthews had completed shortly before dying, just after his fifty-fifth birthday in November 1997. Is death ever entirely unexpected? Not, perhaps, by a collector of experience, a gourmet of language, who can refer to "death flickering in you like a pilot light." In AFTER ALL, Matthews seems to be looking his last on all things lovely: music, food and wine, love. In the stunning central poem, "Dire Cure," which forms a kind of spine to the book, he describes the remarkable implications of the "heroic measures" that saved the life and restored the health of his wife from "a children's cancer (doesn't that possessive break your heart?)." He evokes the death of his favorite jazz musician, Charles Mingus. He speaks of cats, dogs, pigs, sheep, of the past, of history, of joys proposed, but especially, with his characteristic relaxed wit, of language and its quiddities: "My love says I think too damn much and maybe she's right." After All is the last word from one of the most pensive and delicious of all our poets.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

What sets Matthews apart from other pleasant, autobiographically inclined poets is that he doesn't emote by rote, but feels sharply and smartly, transforming his sometimes trite scenarios into plain, careful insights. In this last volume, prepared before his death last year at the age of 55, Matthews gathers the stuff of life?car alarms and collegiate days, hospital misery and divorce. His laconic humor is ever at the ready: At a job interview, the poet dodges questions by speaking "fluent Fog." In Scotland, he wonders about the "astonishing sheep with canoe-shaped ears," and is pleased to learn from a shepherd that they are particularly stupid. Elsewhere, he recalls bringing "back a tall bubbin for the nice lady," who turns out to be "Martha Mitchell (wife of John/ Mitchell, soon to be Nixon's attorney general)." He considers such meetings proof that we are "by being born, a hostage/ to history" and deadpans, "Yes, there's cure for youth, but it's fatal." The very best lines combine Matthews's affability with trenchant turns on himself or his beloveds: "I like divorce. I love to compose/ letters of resignation" or "I saw her fierce privacy,/ like a gnarled luxuriant tree all hung/ with disappointments." The all too human singularity of these poems only underlines Matthews irreplacability.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

Since Matthews was one of the few contemporary poets who really knew how to make the vernacular sing, it's sad to think that these are his last poems. Fittingly, some of them are autumnal, but they range widely and brightly from Prague in 1419 to a Caribbean island in 1967 to Martha Mitchell, Finn sheep, and a poetry reading at West Point. A lovely finale.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 64 pages
• Publisher: Houghton Mifflin; 2nd edition (September 10, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0395913403
• ISBN-13: 978-0395913406
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.8 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,639,883 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars This, too, is human, October 11, 1999

By 

Charles Ward ([e-mail]) (Manhattan) - See all my reviews

This review is from: After All: Last Poems (Hardcover)

I write out of a visceral reaction to the reviewer who suggested that William Matthews poems are somehow "light weight." While it is tempting to make a wisecrack, or worse, I will refrain in the spirt of Bill Matthews who, upon hearing such a remark would have merely clucked his tongue and smiled, as if to say, "this, too, is human."

Those familiar with Bill Matthews relish his poems, which seem light, but, upon closer reading, muse upon the most grave, the most human, of subjects.

Rest in peace, Bill. You are not forgotten.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Poetic Mastermind, February 20, 2005

By 

the cartisian (TN) - See all my reviews

This review is from: After All (Paperback)

I love his poems. He is so tacticly sarcastic. He brings humour to everyday life. I recomend his poetry to everyone who loves making fun of the essence of life itself.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars a question for our reader from cincinnati, July 24, 1999

By A Customer

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: After All: Last Poems (Hardcover)

Dear reader from cincinnati... Say, istn't the "fog on cat's feet" from Carl Sandburg? Anyway, I find Matthews a great poet. And as a musician I enjoy his sensitivity to that art, especially jazz.