New Hope for the Dead: Uncollected William Matthews

(Paperback)

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New Hope for the Dead: Uncollected William Matthews is the last of poet William Matthews' posthumous collections, following Search Party: Collected Poems (Houghton Mifflin) and The Poetry Blues: Essays & Interviews (University of Michigan Press), all edited by son Sebastian Matthews and close friend and fellow poet Stanley Plumly. New Hope for the Dead features the best of Matthews' remaining uncollected work, including over 30 poems spanning Matthews' prolific but tragically cut-short career. But unlike the first two collections, New Hope for the Dead features Matthews' unheralded talents as a short story writer, food writ

Reviews

"William Matthews was a ubiquitous, humane and regal presence in American poetry for thirty years, and the room is sparser since he left. His famous melancholy and droll wit, diversely represented here, were larger than life, and warmer.

As a poet, Matthews practices a brilliant American version of Horatianism. Like those of Horace, Matthews' best poems are meditations so urbane and sincere, so fluently civilized, they do the impossible--restore the sullied reputation of rationality. His metaphors are superb, his knowledge dark and alive, his pitch perfect. He was and is the all around poet. He still has a lot of love to give."

--Tony Hoagland

Author Bio

Sebastian Matthews is the author of the poetry collection We Generous (Red Hen Press) and a memoir, In My Father's Footsteps (W. W. Norton). He co-edited, with Stanley Plumly, Search Party: Collected Poems ofWilliam Matthews. Matthews teaches at Warren Wilson College and serves on the faculty at Queens College Low-Residency MFA in Creative Writing. Matthews co-edits Rivendell and serves on the editorial board of Q Ave Press, makers of handmade poetry chapbooks. He lives in Asheville, North Carolina.