Matthew Rohrer

Matthew Rohrer at his best. Humorous, quotidian, urban, and conversational poems about family and friendship.

Surrounded by Friends

A gripping, eerie, and hilarious novel-in-verse from poet Matthew Rohrer. In a Russian-doll of fictional episodes, we follow a midlevel publishing assistant over the course of a day as he encounters ghost stories, science fiction adventures, Victorian hashish eating, and robot bigfoots. Rohrer mesmerizes with wildly imaginative tales and resonant verse in this compelling love letter to storytelling. this night they all seemed asleep for a while the stark shadows held me only my mind moved wildly behind my eyes until I heard a tiny song coming from the driver song of a bandit’s broken heart, song of his betrayal I slept and dreamed I was awake Matthew Rohrer is the author of Surrounded by Friends (Wave Books, 2015), Destroyer and Preserver (Wave Books, 2011), A Plate of Chicken (Ugly Duckling Presse, 2009), Rise Up (Wave Books, 2007) and A Green Light (Verse Press, 2004), which was shortlisted for the 2005 Griffin Poetry Prize. He is also the author of Satellite (Verse Press, 2001), and co-author, with Joshua Beckman, of Nice Hat. Thanks. (Verse Press, 2002), and the audio CD Adventures While Preaching the Gospel of Beauty. He has appeared on NPR’s All Things Considered and The Next Big Thing. His first book, A Hummock in the Malookas was selected for the National Poetry Series by Mary Oliver in 1994. He lives in Brooklyn, New York, and teaches at NYU.

The Others

"A new collection of poetry by Matthew Rohrer"--

The Sky Contains the Plans

The world’s enduring struggles fuse with a family’s tiniest gestures in this popular NY-based poet’s most recent collection.

Destroyer and Preserver

Kim Addonizio

Jack Zipes

Francine Prose

Norman Lock

Donna Tartt

Aimee Bender

Kate Bernheimer

Joshua Beckman

Mary Caponegro

Julie Choffel

Monica Fambrough

Sarah Hannah

Brent Hendricks

Stacey Richter

Marjorie Sandor

Kiki Smith

Sarah Veglahn

Wendy Weitman

Contains poetry, fiction, and essays that either address the abiding influence of fairy tales on contemporary literature and culture, or are themselves contemporary fairy tales in prose or verse.

The Blue Issue

Fairy Tale Review

Poetry. "A PLATE OF CHICKEN is a masterpiece of subtlety and frailty, a series of glimpses, thought-fragments, coping devices, and simple declarative sentences. 'My function, ' Rohrer writes, 'is to be in love between two people who hate each other, ' and to this end he serves the gods of sentence and line simultaneously. This gathering of seven-line stanzas opens a door to a blanket of white noise, like Brian Eno's Music for Airports, and never lets up"--Lewis Warsh.

A Plate of Chicken

Equal parts punk rock and pastoral, Rohrer has] a voice that seems unearthly in its ability to be detached and simultaneously tender.-American Poet Approaching pleasure and terror with the same searching and determined curiosity, Rise Up traverses political, natural, and domestic landscapes with gentle agility. Beautifully crafted surfaces give way to sincere depth. Matthew Rohrer is the author of four poetry collections, including A Green Light (2004, shortlisted for the Griffin Prize), Satellite, and A Hummock in the Malookas. He has appeared on NPR's All Things Considered and The Next Big Thing.

Rise Up

In this follow-up collection to the National Poetry Series winner A Hummock in the Malookas, Rohrer's poems play against convention, finding dark, surreal underpinnings in the seemingly innocent objects and experiences of everyday life. Direct, humorous and disquieting, Satellite further develops the unique sensibility of an important young poet.

Satellite

National Poetry Series Winner and cult favorite Matthew Rohrer's latest collection of whimsical, dark, surreal parables.

Matthew Rohrer

Books

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