William Matthews (poet)

William Matthews (November 11, 1942 – November 12, 1997) was an American poet and essayist.

Life

Born and raised in Cincinnati, Ohio, Matthews earned a bachelor's degree from Yale University, where he was a member of Wolf's Head Society, and a master's from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

In addition to serving as a Writer-in-Residence at Boston's Emerson College, Matthews held various academic positions at institutions including Cornell University, the University of Washington (Seattle), the University of Colorado at Boulder, and the University of Iowa. At the time of his death he was a professor of English and director of the creative writing program at City College of New York [http://www1.ccny.cuny.edu] .

During his 27 years as an author, Matthews received fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, and the National Endowment for the Arts. In 1997 he was a recipient of the Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize.

Works

Matthews published 11 books of poetry, including "Time & Money" which won the National Book Critics Circle Award in 1996 and was a Lenore Marshall Poetry Prize finalist. Two posthumous collections have been released: "Search Party: Collected Poems" and "After All: Last Poems". Frequent subjects in his writing are the early years of professional basketball and historical Jazz figures.

Bibliography

*"The Parataxic Mode: Concerning Defoe's Use of Irony in Moll Flanders" (1966, MA Thesis, UNC)
*"Broken Syllables" (pamphlet, 1969)
*"Ruining the New Road" (1970)
*"The Cloud" (1971)
*"Matthews' Compleat Palmistry" (1971)
*"Sleek for the Long Flight: New Poems" (1972)
*"Sticks and Stones" (1975)
*"Rising and Falling" (1979)
*"Flood" (1982)
*"Good" (1983)
*"A Happy Childhood" (1984)
*"Foreseeable Futures" (1987)
*"Sleek For the Long Flight" (1988)
*"Blues if You Want" (1989)
*"Curiosities (Poets on Poetry)" (essays, 1989)
*"Selected Poems and Translations, 1969-1991" (1992)
*"The Mortal City: 100 Epigrams of Martial" (translator/editor, 1995)
*"Time & Money: New Poems" (1996)
*"After All: Last Poems" (1998)
*"The Poetry Blues: Essays and Interviews" (ed. Stanley Plumley)
*"The Satires of Horace" (editor/translator, 2002)
*"Search Party: Collected Poems" (2005)

External links

* [http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/132 Academy of American Poets: William Matthews]
* [http://capa.conncoll.edu/matthews.rising.htm Text of "Rising and Falling"]
* [http://www.ccny.cuny.edu/library/matthews.html William Matthews Memorial Readings]
* [http://www.blackbird.vcu.edu/v3n2/nonfiction/wojahn_d/matthews_interview.htm An Interview with William Matthews (David Wojahn, James Harms)]
* [http://www.wooster.edu/artfuldodge/interviews/matthews.htm A Conversation with William Matthews (The Artful Dodge)]
* [http://www.ohioreadingroadtrip.org/matthews/ Ohio Reading Road Trip: William Matthews]