Time & Money [Paperback]

William Matthews (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 17, 1996

William Matthews's ten books have gradually earned him a place on the first roster of American poets -" as water licks its steady way through stone." " Very little of the poetry of the past twenty years," Henry Taylor has written in the Washington Times, " is more intelligent and engaging than that of William Matthews . .. Admiring gratitude seems perfectly appropriate." The New Yorker has described Matthews's work as " poems that revel in etymology and delight in colloquialism." And Carol Muske, in The Nation, has added: " If asked, I couldn't come up with a poet more in tune with the ironies and stand-up vernacular, the jazz of the everyday, than William Matthews . . . Matthews is a wise and fine poet and a funny person. Like time and money, an unbeatable combination. " This is a large-hearted book, a strong and worldly book, the work of five years by one of the most admired and generous of American poets. The National Book Critics Circle named it the winner of its 1995 award in poet

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Late in his life, William Matthews left us with Time and Money, winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award. It is a meditation on loss and grace that some of us will be thinking about for a long time. "Bob Marley's Hair," which discusses the famed musician's dreadlocks falling out during chemotherapy, is as poignant as, well, "Babe Ruth at the End," the story of Ruth on his deathbed. The real gem, though, is "Dead Languages," a study in how, to use Frost's expression, "way leads on to way." Matthews tosses out fascinating examples of how words have evolved, how "Live English lugs a dead language inside." The way language mutates its way through the world, unconscious of its own changes, Matthews writes, isn't far from our own dimly understood lives: "We did what we did, we're / not proud nor ashamed, we led our lives / or they led us, and how would we know which?"

From Publishers Weekly

Things that don't last occupy Matthews in his 10th collection, coming after 1991's Selected Poems and Translations. These 40-plus poems, nearly all previously published, refract irony into an unexpectedly broad spectrum-from the pitch of despair to pale diffidence. Showing a diversity of style, from the incantatory momentum of "My Father's Body," describing the physical processes that follow the death of this "mild, democratic man," to the reflectively grateful notes of "Landscape with Onlooker," Matthews probes what passes-lives, love, certainty and, often, music. Poems about Mingus, Pavarotti, even Bob Marley, weave through the volume's three sections and, like other moments sharply remembered ("In the Boathouse" and "President Reagan's Visit to New York, October 1984") seem to capture the poet's emotional attention at the least remove. Humor, brittle or forgiving, is also generously offered: "that was how I thought/ poetry worked: you digested experience and shat// literature..." he writes about his 17-year-old writing self; yet in a later poem, he gives credit to "...the erotic thrall/ of work as restraint against despair." The best of these poems are powerful, brave and lasting.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 80 pages
• Publisher: Mariner Books (September 17, 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0395825261
• ISBN-13: 978-0395825266
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.5 x 0.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #312,317 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Time & Money, October 15, 2004

By 

jqr "Know what free advice is worth" (Brooklyn) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Time & Money (Hardcover)

Self-Help is one of the most luminous poems I've ever had the pleasure to read. I memorized the whole thing through at one time just so I could enjoy the pleasure of the words falling through my head whenever I wanted to.

Mr. Matthews is the Charlie Parker of verse.

1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Wonderful collection, May 11, 2002

By 

Chelle "Chelle" - See all my reviews

This review is from: Time & Money (Paperback)

I have often struggled with simplicity. For a piece of writing to be luminous it must be laden with words, and through all of those words abstraction will make us feel as though the effort marks it as wondrous, right? Perhaps, but Matthews offers only concrete images, words that mask very little but bring beauty to every circumstance they would illuminate. Here, simplicity serves poet and reader very well.

My favorite piece is "Social Notes from All Over: Mt. Olympus"--the classical, fantastical setting is infinitely appealing. Matthews has gods "cross dressing as mortals" ever aware, though just as eager to remain deluded, that all they have is nothing at all. If I paid for this poem alone I would have been satisfied.

There is a great deal of grief in these pages, and more than a little bit of sadness, but as trite as it sounds, there is a sense of elation to be found as well. Poetry should always leave us with some thought, we should think of it fondly, want to recite it if only to ourselves if we can--Matthews affirms all that.