Matthew Nienow's Blog

My first full-length collection of poetry, House of Water, has been acquired by Alice James Books and will be published in October of 2016. I’m thrilled to join this press as they have published many of my favorite poets. B. H. Fairchild’s, The Art of the Lathe, remains one of my most-loved books. Brian Turner’s, Here, Bullet, was very influential to me when it came out. And more recently, my peers and friends have blown open the world with stunning books: Jamaal May with Hum and the forthcoming The Big Book of Exit Strategies, Matthew Olzmann with Mezzaninies and the forthcoming Contradictions in the Design, Richie Hoffman with Second Empire, and Phillip B. William with Thief in the Interior.

It’s been a long road getting here so far, but I’m truly glad for the wait. The poems are better and I can easily say I’m proud of this book. I’m looking forward to it existing in the world.

Fall is coming down heavy all around town—windstorms and a perpetual dampness permeating the top later of everything.  I’ve been staying busy teaching these days, now having more of a regular job than I’ve had in about eight years.  In the off-hours I’m slowly writing new poems, including two longer-for-me poems which may find their way into my House of Water.  A few poems are forthcoming in The Rattling Wall and an essay and five older poems will appear in the anthology Poets On Growth due out next spring.

It may not be until January that I get back to shop work, but when I do, I’ll be building about six custom paddle boards right off.  I have a few standing orders and I look forward to securing a few more buyers in the meantime.

Sometimes the rotating focus of my life throws me, but I’ve learned that it all comes back around to balance eventually.  For now, I’m doing what I can to enjoy what I have in front of me.

On May 21st, I’ll have the great pleasure of reading with my former professor, Linda Bierds, at the Hugo House. Linda remains the best workshop leader I’ve ever had, and one of the kindest and most generous poets I’ve known.  The reading is the May installment of Castalia, the University of Washington’s reading series, which tends to draw large crowds of interested readers. It’s typically a lot of fun and I know this time will be no exception. Join us if you can!

This week, my manuscript, “House of Water,” was named a finalist for the Beatrice Hawley Award from Alice James Books.  Even better than winning, though, is the fact that I get to celebrate to amazing poets who happen to be friends.  Richie Hoffman won the prize, and Phillip B. Williams will also have his book published.  This is what keeps one going.  Caring about others work, sometimes more than your own.

Our simple life in Port Townsend just got a little sweeter.  Yesterday we put in an offer on a house and it was accepted.  Not just a house, though, five acres, a small shop, a writer’s studio and big organic gardens with something like a thousand bulbs of garlic already in the ground.  Oh and wood-fired pizza oven.  And an unfinished cob house.  Woods, open space, privacy—ten minutes from downtown PT.

I hope we don’t stumble upon something ugly during the inspections, cause this dream is pretty near perfect.

This past week I began work on the schooner Mycia, a 70 foot gaff-rigged fishing vessel whose roots date back to the early 1980's, and the Northwest School Wooden Boatbuilding, which I recently graduated from. Built partly in the backyard of its owners, it has stayed in their family traveling up and down the Inside Passage while they split their time between Sitka, Alaska and Port Townsend.

I had seen Mycia out on Townsend Bay, particularly during the Wooden Boat Festival and was drawn to the presence of the pilot house, which wasn't seen on most of the other Northwest schooners.  I liked the design and was glad to begin my career in the Port on this boat. I've been wrecking out the aftermost part of the deck in order to replace a few feet of rot. Deck plank joints need to be staggered to maintain strength, so this requires precision and planning. You're already tearing out dozens of feet of gorgeous old growth fir, just to replace it in a way that keeps the entire boat strong.

I beat myself up good so far, and will be back tomorrow morning for more.

I get the mail every day, like most writers, with a dumbly hopeful heart. The mere possibility of what that hollow could hold still gets me excited even though I haven't been sending more than a few paper submissions each year for a while now. Mostly, I come up with the bland detritus of our times—clothing catalogs, coupons and credit card offers—at which I shrug and reset my hopefulness meter back to zero. But the mailbox occasionally offers something even more rare than journal correspondence—an unexpected letter from a friend.

The frequency with which I write letters may be seasonal, or manic—I don't know. What I do know is that in letter writing I enter a different space of mind. I turn off certain filters in order that the letter can flow naturally, as a conversation would, as an act of direct and earnest speech. Sometimes that lands me in weird places midway down the page where my train of thought has come to a berm with the tracks run dead and I have to back up a bit. But mostly, I find that this abandon (with intention) gets me to the heart quicker. This only happens for me with old fashioned correspondence, with pen (preferably a good pen), and paper.

I think about famous literary correspondences gathered together in lengthy book formats and the sometimes joy at reading the more intimate voices of people who have reached the icon status. These kinds of friendships don't seem to exist much anymore, which makes me even more grateful when someone asks me to stop everything else for a minute and engage in a conversation of substance. And I mean substance literally. To hold someone's words in your hands is to carry a bit of what they have carried. To have a piece of their mind. And the chance to give a piece back.

In that spirit, I have created a book giveaway over at Goodreads for The End of the Folded Map. If you happen to win and mention that you read this post, even if I don't know you personally, I will send along a handwritten version of one of the poems, a letter with some thoughts on maps, poem-making, and, of course, the chapbook. Enter to win, and spread the word! It's free.

The End of the Folded Map
by Matthew Nienow

Giveaway ends October 12, 2011.

See the giveaway details

at Goodreads.

Enter to win

Well, I don't know about you, but I'm still here. Truckin' along as always, learning by falling and picking myself up. Summer came and went, bringing with it birthdays and a small bit of adventure. River turned two and officially graduated into little-manhood. He's happy, talking up a storm, sharpening his memory, vocabulary, and preferences, daily. He is pretty much the best thing ever.

I also had the great pleasure of returning to Bread Loaf in August where I worked in the back office. Let me just say that making copies and answering questions trumps waitering. Pretty easily. It was still a lot of work and immense fun, but I felt a better balance this time around. I returned home with a fire under me and have been working hard since—revising the full-length and, most exciting, starting, with gusto and surprise, a second book with a vision. I'm writing about boats and tools and making things. About shaping and being shaped. The approaches are direct and obtuse, earnest and ironic, conversational and mythic. It's exciting as I really haven't felt the project impulse before, especially in anticipation of creating work.

In other news, I finished Boat School and feel like an accomplished beginner. I think I will feel that for years, but I guess it's good. Still so much to learn. Looking for work in the Yard while finishing another boat project. I'll say more when there's more to say.

And this: the NEA just updated its Writers' Corner, including a poem by yours truly. Hope you like what you see. Sometimes I think I am too earnest. Anyhow, I'd like to be here more often. We'll see what life allows.

My life is a mess of possibilities. Every good thing I’ve ever poured myself into has reappeared before me this year as if to show me the different roads I must choose from.

Boats, music, poetry and family.

I want them all, but I’ve never been able to keep them all in the air at once. And maybe it is better that way, as each love is distilled with the urgency that demands I give in when I am called.

Yesterday I spent the day helping a friend pour a huge slab of concrete (two big trucks worth of cement), us in the usual tattered Carharts and rubber boots, wading atop the rebar in a wet gray mix, working it into every crevice before smoothing the whole thing over, again and again. It was a good day of work, felt in the body, the result tangible before. I never once thought about getting on the computer. How different that is from my former self of the past several years, hungry for any connection the internet had to offer. And then, late in the day I get online and find a poem of mine feature on Verse Daily. I had waited for that in the past, but of course it only happened after I was done waiting. After I had turned away. So thanks, Universe, for once again speaking clearly and giving me something to consider. (Thanks also to all the friends who have said nice things and shared the poem on Facebook.)

Because I have been so torn this year, between all my loves (and vices) I never made much of a deal of my new chapbook, The End of the Folded Map, but I’m here now, and I have this to say: I’m proud of the collection in a way I haven’t been with my previous two chapbooks. I think it holds my strongest work to date and the folks at Codhill did a lovely job putting it together. I don’t think it should cost as much as it does, but if you can afford it check it out. And if you can’t, drop me a line and I will find a way to make it cheaper. You can find it on Amazon, Borders, through SUNY Press and at Open Books in Seattle.

Concrete. Poems.

And now I’m back to the chisel. And tonight my band plays a great pub in town that over looks Puget Sound. And River turns two on Sunday, which means I will have more to say then.

My life is a mess of possibilities. Every good thing I've ever poured myself into has reappeared before me this year as if to show me the different roads I must choose from.

Boats, music, poetry and family.

I want them all, but I've never been able to keep them all in the air at once. And maybe it is better that way, as each love is distilled with the urgency that demands I give in when I am called.

Yesterday I spent the day helping a friend pour a huge slab of concrete (two big trucks worth of cement), us in the usual tattered Carharts and rubber boots, wading atop the rebar in a wet gray mix, working it into every crevice before smoothing the whole thing over, again and again. It was a good day of work, felt in the body, the result tangible before. I never once thought about getting on the computer. How different that is from my former self of the past several years, hungry for any connection the internet had to offer. And then, late in the day I get online and find a poem of mine feature on Verse Daily. I had waited for that in the past, but of course it only happened after I was done waiting. After I had turned away. So thanks, Universe, for once again speaking clearly and giving me something to consider. (Thanks also to all the friends who have said nice things and shared the poem on Facebook.)

Because I have been so torn this year, between all my loves (and vices) I never made much of a deal of my new chapbook, The End of the Folded Map, but I'm here now, and I have this to say: I'm proud of the collection in a way I haven't been with my previous two chapbooks. I think it holds my strongest work to date and the folks at Codhill did a lovely job putting it together. I don't think it should cost as much as it does, but if you can afford it check it out. And if you can't, drop me a line and I will find a way to make it cheaper. You can find it on Amazon, Borders, through SUNY Press and at Open Books in Seattle.

Concrete. Poems.

And now I'm back to the chisel. And tonight my band plays a great pub in town that over looks Puget Sound. And River turns two on Sunday, which means I will have more to say then.