Superfecta

by Clay Matthews

SUPERFECTA examines our relation to time and memory with surprising energy and consistent empathy. The tension between system and chance connect Clay Matthews’ poems, balanced as they are between the abstractions of symbol and the immediacy of language. For Matthews, there is a thin line dividing the body’s physicality and the wonder of the mind, where “The cartography of a rat is the same for all species/ in that it is always a map of the unknown.” Matthews writes about our desire to identify mythos in everyday experience, and celebrates when it’s discovered amid our anxious and uncertain place in history.

_____

Clay Matthews’ big-hearted poems swell with a flash-bang intellect that serves heaping portions of humor, trouble and love. These poems are fantastic. Dexterous in a range that includes everything from Galileo to The Allman Brothers, this debut collection puzzles and laughs wildly—singing full-throated through the latitudes of our lives. It is a French silk pie filled with rusty nails. Matthews is here to tell us that this truckstop reliquary is beautiful and more than enough. Superfecta sizzles and glows.

–Alex Lemon, author of Mosquito (Tin House Books) and Hallelujah Blackout (Milkweed Editions)

_____

If you like poetry, you must read this book by a young writer of exceptional talent. Clay's poems are well-crafted, incisive and worthy of your attention. They make me look forward to his future books with great anticipation.

-Ai, author of Dread (W.W. Norton & Co.) and Vice (winner of the National Book Award, W.W. Norton & Co.)

_____

In Superfecta, Clay Matthews shows us that a good bet is not just fortune but a sense for the soul of the fast track. These poems set a sure pace of casual confidence of voice and humor, with a gift for detail as genuine as a road trip to Tunica and a forty-dollar room at the Best Western. This book is infused from beginning to end with the gambler’s joy in starting over, or, as Matthews puts it, with his characteristic sweet wryness that overlooks nothing and appreciates everything, “on some mornings/we are geniuses each time we learn to pedal and remain/upright.”

-Lisa Lewis, author of The Unbeliever (winner of the Brittingham Prize in Poetry, University of Wisconsin Press) and Silent Treatment (National Poetry Series, Penguin Books)

Genres: Poetry

84 pages

First published September 1, 2007

About the author

Clay Matthews has published poetry in journals such as The American Poetry Review, Black Warrior Review, Kenyon Review, Gulf Coast, and elsewhere. His most recent book, Shore, was recently released from Cooper Dillon Books. His other books are Superfecta (Ghost Road Press), RUNOFF (BlazeVox), and Pretty, Rooster (Cooper Dillon).

Reviews

[emily · Rating 4 out of 5]

This felt renewing like when I have a particularly good conversation with a close friend. Fluid, expansive, accessible.

[Catherine · Rating 5 out of 5]

Amazing book. Amazing poems. Amazing poet. Amazing guy!