Customer Reviews

After All: Last Poems

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

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.

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.

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.

one of the things a male poet has to have i think is a manly style. i don't want to read about fog on cat feet or wanderingly like a cloud. i don't want to read lines that begin "O..." so i find matthews quite good. not that he's macho like a rapper, far from it. one of his poems, "The Shooting," is slangy and angry like a rapper, and perhaps shows the limits of rap lines as poetry. matthews anyway isn't angry so much as bemused and saddened. his good education and middle-aged whiteness are usually in evidence, and this gives his poems irony instead of rage and tolerance instead of hate. nor can he resist the urge to write one about his pet cat. but the typical poem here is spare and lucid. as the poet himself says in "A Poetry Reading at West Point": "I don't want my poems to be hard, unless the truth is, if there is a truth." short, accessible, thoughtful and amusing stuff, if maybe a bit lightweight at times.