Search Party: Collected Poems Of William Matthews

by Matthews, William

• ISBN13: 9780618565856
• ISBN10: 061856585X
• Edition: Reprint
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2005-04-05
• Publisher: Lightning Source Inc

Summary

When William Matthews died, the day after his fifty-fifth birthday, America lost one of its most important poets, one whose humor and wit were balanced by deep emotion, whose off-the-cuff inventiveness belied the acuity of his verse. Drawing from his eleven collections and including twenty-three previously unpublished poems, Search Party is the essential compilation of this beloved poet's work. Edited by his son, Sebastian Matthews, and William Matthews's friend and fellow poet Stanley Plumly (who also introduces the book), Search Party is an excellent introduction to the poet and his glistening riffs on twentieth-century topics from basketball to food to jazz.

Author Biography

William Matthews (1942-1997) received the National Book Critics Circle Award in 1995 and the Ruth Lilly Award of the Modern Poetry Association in 1997. Educated at Yale University and the University of North Carolina, he taught and lectured all across the United States

Table of Contents

Introduction by Stanley Plumly	xvii
Ruining the New Road
The Search Party	3	(2)
Psychoanalysis	5	(1)
Blues for John Coltrane, Dead at 41	6	(1)
Coleman Hawkins (d. 1969), RIP	7	(1)
Jealousy	8	(2)
Moving	10	(1)
Lust	11	(1)
Faith of Our Fathers	12	(1)
Why We Are Truly a Nation	13	(1)
On Cape Cod a Child Is Stolen	14	(1)
Driving All Night	15	(1)
Oh Yes	16	(1)
Old Girlfriends	17	(1)
What You Need	18	(1)
Wehlener Sonnenuhr Auslese 1959	19	(1)
Yes!	20	(3)
Sleek for the Long Flight
Directions	23	(1)
Sleeping Alone	24	(1)
Driving Alongside the Housatonic River Alone on a Rainy April Night	25	(1)
Another Beer	26	(2)
Night Driving	28	(1)
The Needle's Eye, the Lens	29	(1)
An Egg in the Corner of One Eye	30	(1)
The Cat	31	(3)
Talk	34	(1)
La Tâche 1962	35	(1)
Snow	36	(2)
Sleep	38	(2)
Letter to Russell Banks	40	(5)
Sticks & Stones
The Portrait	45	(1)
Mud Chokes No Eels	46	(1)
Beer after Tennis, 22 August 1972	47	(1)
Bring the War Home	48	(1)
The Waste Carpet	49	(5)
Sticks & Stones	54	(5)
Rising and Falling
Spring Snow	59	(1)
Moving Again	60	(2)
Snow Leopards at the Denver Zoo	62	(1)
The News	63	(1)
Strange Knees	64	(1)
Living Among the Dead	65	(2)
Left Hand Canyon	67	(2)
In Memory of the Utah Stars	69	(2)
Bud Powell, Paris, 1959	71	(1)
Listening to Lester Young	72	(1)
The Icehouse, Pointe au Baril, Ontario	73	(2)
The Mail	75	(1)
Taking the Train Home	76	(3)
Waking at Dusk from a Nap	79	(2)
In Memory of W.H. Auden	81	(2)
Nurse Sharks	83	(2)
Long	85	(4)
Flood
New	89	(1)
Cows Grazing at Sunrise	90	(1)
Housework	91	(1)
Bystanders	92	(2)
Twins	94	(2)
Our Strange and Lovable Weather	96	(2)
Descriptive Passages	98	(2)
Good Company	100	(2)
School Figures	102	(2)
Pissing off the Back of the Boat into the Nivernais Canal	104	(2)
The Penalty for Bigamy Is Two Wives	106	(1)
Bmp Bmp	107	(2)
Nabokov's Death	109	(2)
On the Porch at the Frost Place, Franconia, NH	111	(4)
Uncollected Poems (1967-1981)
The Cloud	115	(5)
Eternally Undismayed Are the Poolshooters	120	(2)
The Drunken Baker	122	(1)
Leaving the Cleveland Airport	123	(1)
Dancing to Reggae Music	124	(2)
Gossip	126	(1)
Iowa City to Boulder	127	(1)
Lions in the Cincinnati Zoo	128	(1)
A Walk with John Logan, 1973	129	(1)
Clearwater Beach, Florida, 1950	130	(2)
Jilted	132	(3)
A Happy Childhood
Good	135	(4)
Sympathetic	139	(1)
Whiplash	140	(3)
Bad	143	(4)
The Psychopathology of Everyday Life	147	(2)
Loyal	149	(1)
A Happy Childhood	150	(6)
Civilization and Its Discontents	156	(2)
Familial	158	(1)
Right	159	(4)
The Theme of the Three Caskets	163	(3)
Masterful	166	(1)
An Elegy for Bob Marley	167	(2)
Wrong	169	(6)
Foreseeable Futures
Fellow Oddballs	175	(1)
April in the Berkshires	176	(1)
Photo of the Author with a Favorite Pig	177	(1)
The Accompanist	178	(2)
Herd of Buffalo Crossing the Missouri on Ice	180	(1)
Caddies' Day, the Country Club, a Small Town in Ohio	181	(2)
Dog Life	183	(1)
Recovery Room	184	(2)
Black Box	186	(1)
Vasectomy	187	(4)
Blues If You Want
Nabokov's Blues	191	(3)
39,000 Feet	194	(2)
Mood Indigo	196	(2)
Housecooling	198	(1)
Homer's Seeing-Eye Dog	199	(2)
The Blues	201	(2)
Moonlight in Vermont	203	(2)
Smoke Gets in Your Eyes	205	(2)
School Days	207	(1)
Little Blue Nude	208	(4)
Onions	212	(2)
Straight Life	214	(7)
Time & Money
Grief	221	(1)
The Wolf of Gubbio	222	(1)
Mingus at The Showplace	223	(1)
The Bear at the Dump	224	(2)
My Father's Body	226	(2)
Time	228	(4)
President Reagan's Visit to New York, October 1984	232	(1)
Mingus at The Half Note	233	(2)
Men at My Father's Funeral	235	(1)
The Rookery at Hawthornden	236	(2)
Note Left for Gerald Stern in an Office I Borrowed, and He Would Next, at a Summer Writers' Conference	238	(2)
Cheap Seats, the Cincinnati Gardens, Professional Basketball, 1959	240	(1)
The Rented House in Maine	241	(2)
Mingus in Diaspora	243	(2)
Tomorrow	245	(2)
Money	247	(4)
The Generations	251	(2)
Cancer Talk	253	(1)
A Night at the Opera	254	(5)
Uncollected Poems (1982-1997)
Another Real Estate Deal on Oahu	259	(2)
Slow Work	261	(1)
E lucevan le stelle	262	(1)
Portrait of the Artist as a Young Clarinetist	263	(1)
Debt	264	(1)
Condoms Then	265	(1)
Condoms Now	266	(1)
Phone Log	267	(1)
Driving Through the Poconos, Route 80, 1:30 A.M., Snow	268	(1)
The Buddy Bolden Cylinder	269	(1)
The Memo	270	(1)
Grandmother Talking	271	(1)
Grandmother, Dead at 99 Years and 10 Months	272	(2)
Names	274	(2)
I Let a Song Go out of My Heart	276	(3)
After All
Mingus in Shadow	279	(1)
Rescue	280	(2)
Truffle Pigs	282	(1)
Manners	283	(2)
Promiscuous	285	(2)
Sooey Generous	287	(3)
Oxymorons	290	(1)
Dire Cure	291	(4)
Umbrian Nightfall	295	(1)
The Cloister	296	(1)
A Poetry Reading at West Point	297	(2)
People Like Us	299	(1)
Frazzle	300	(1)
The Bar at the Andover Inn	301	(1)
Big Tongue	302	(3)
Bucket's Got a Hole in It	305	(1)
Misgivings	306	(1)
Care	307	(2)
Index of Titles	309