Somebody Else Sold the World

by Adrian Matejka

A resonant new collection on love and persistence from the author of The Big Smoke , a finalist for the National Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize

The poems in Adrian Matejka's newest and fifth collection, Somebody Else Sold the World , meditate on the ways we exist in an uncontrollable world: in love and its aftermaths, in families that divide themselves, in protest-filled streets, in isolation as routines become obsolete because of lockdown orders and curfews. Somebody Else uses past and future touchstones like pop songs, love notes, and imaginary gossip to illuminate those moments of splendor that persist even in exhaustion. These poems show that there are many possibilities of brightness and hope, even in the middle of pandemics and revolutions.

Genres: Poetry, Audiobook

96 pages, Paperback

First published July 6, 2021

About the author

Adrian Matejka was born in Nuremberg, Germany but grew up in California and Indiana. He is a graduate of Indiana University and the MFA program at Southern Illinois University Carbondale. His first collection of poems, The Devils Garden, won the 2002 Kinereth Gensler Award from Alice James Books. His second collection, Mixology, was a winner of the 2008 National Poetry Series and was published by Penguin Books in 2009. Mixology was subsequently nominated for an NAACP Image Award. He is a Cave Canem fellow and is the recipient of two Illinois Arts Council Literary Awards. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in American Poetry Review, The Best American Poetry 2010, Crab Orchard Review, Gulf Coast, Pleiades, and Prairie Schooner among other journals and anthologies. He teaches at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville where he serves as Poetry Editor for Souwester."

Reviews

[Jonathan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Alas, these poems just didn't hit me with the impact as the other two Matejka volumes I've read.

[Angela · Rating 4 out of 5]

I’ve read a couple of pandemic-era poetry collections at this point, and I think this might be the top of the list for me. Matejka captured the ennui and the perpetual bad news in a way that felt both common and absurd. COVID-19 is an era of our lives, and it is also a force that rendered the human notion of time as strange and meaningless. Somebody Else Sold the World is split into sections, with several poem titles repeated in each. The permutations speak to the dayless repetition in the early days of the pandemic, and Matejka’s careful rhythms emphasize that feeling of endurance. However, my favorite part was the wordplay. There were times where poems showed off the flexibility of language or had these perfectly abstract similes (I’m not supposed/ to be here, middle-aged/ as medieval script/ on a silk shirtsleeve) that I had to just stop and revel. Words will always be there to tinker around with even when you can’t go outside!

[Kari · Rating 4 out of 5]

These poems put me back in a pandemic state of mind (in a good way). Matejka’s writing is melodic and rhythmic. I fairly flew through this slim volume this afternoon waiting for snow to start falling. Here’s a few of my favorite lines: It will be good/ to watch things spin effortlessly,/ as if we weren’t even here.

[Jonathan · Rating 3 out of 5]

A slim and fantastic set of poems by Indiana's former poet laureate (2018-19), who, yes, served in that role just before the world hit the proverbial fan. Some of the poems here are about the pandemic itself, and take one back to those times full of not-knowing apprehension. The book contains some truly marvelous and unexpected turns of phrase.

There's an intriguing series of pieces in here with the same title (the book's own, inspired of course by David Bowie), and also some introductory quotes from other musicians (Blood Orange, Future, et al.) amid the poet's own inflections of lyrical wonder. Adrian Matejka acknowledges some influences at the back of the book, and I have to think he and Hanif Abdurraqib would get along smashingly if they don't already.

A few scattered Indianapolis or Indiana references in these pages, including a jolt of one (for me) about regarding the drive-through Covid-19 testing conducted in pharma giant Lilly's parking garage in 2020.

I'm excited to delve into more from Matejka, an Indiana University professor, including The Big Smoke, his work that was a finalist for a National Book Award and a Pulitzer Prize.

[Steve Jordan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Definitely a 3.5/5. Like most poetry books, only 1 out of 13 poems (or so) really hits you, but those that do make it more than worth it. And then the best lines of those best poems? That's the reason you read in the first place:

(Description of a zoo) "[A]mended fauna / in the arboretum of murderers / where out-of-season hunters / line up for hours just / to ogle your affable flange."

(Snakes) "Snakes didn't ask for any / of this. Snakes wanted to be / a boy with opposable thumbs, / but woke up one May with / a shoulderless heart skipping / beneath new, malleable skin."

(Getting in a relationship) "Check this box & / like a breath, you'll feel mostly bygone. / Like one of those early recordings you'll / be scratchy and demystified. Untranscribably / confessional until the last quarter note / is a processional."

[Indiana Authors Awards]

Somebody Else Sold the World lyrically evocates how times change without changing. Adrian Matejka’s fifth poetry collection transmogrifies our now as the titular, Bowie-inspired poem, “Somebody Else Sold the World,” (cycled throughout the book) gets lifted by funnel cloud and transported to another phase—as was house transferring Dorothy from Kansas to Oz. Now, we’re off-kiltered, living in chaos—COVID, BLM, insurgency, transphobia/gender validation, voting, taxes, truth vs. the big lie. Now, we implore for some essence of semblance for then in this new place, as we did back there, in our old place...

Read Curtis L. Crisler's full review at: https://www.indianaauthorsawards.org/...

[Meg · Rating 3 out of 5]

Definitely captured the vibe of those pandemic years, but was filled with a lot of "big" words that I didn’t feel added anything to the poetry in "big" ways. Hate to say it, but it was almost reminiscent of when Joey writes a recommendation letter for Monica and Chandler using a thesaurus. I’m all for experimenting with vocabulary but what you say still needs to make sense.

[Rich Farrell · Rating 3 out of 5]

There are some great lines and phrases in here, which is typical of his work; however, as a collection as a whole, pandemic-era poetry doesn’t really catch my attention, as I discovered. That says more about me than the writer, but this isn’t necessarily a collection I’d revisit.

[Aarik Danielsen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Matejka is one of our true modern masters. This collection is so soulful and so absolutely perfect.

[Mary Rose · Rating 3 out of 5]

Favorite poems: Bullet Parts [Case (Brass Or Steel)], Somebody Else Sold the World [I Don't Know If I...], I Say The Thing For The First Time.

[Timothy Batson · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars. The immediacy of this small collection is right up front and fast paced. I think it's one I'll revisit in a few years, after having digested the pandemic years a bit more.

[Ross Williamson · Rating 3 out of 5]

note to self: revisit on paper! i didn’t really get most of this.

[Karena Bakas · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent and accessible. Timely. Recommended to all.

[Anna · Rating 1 out of 5]

I don’t like my poetry to be based on Future and Travis Scott lyrics.

[J. · Rating 4 out of 5]

Vivid and relevant! I'll definitely revisit this collection!

[Emma]

poetry class read

[Ella R. · Rating 4 out of 5]

Weirdly I really liked this, it’s my favorite so far out of the three books for this class that we’ve read! It was deep and feel-y, but also more relatable I guess? And some nicer vibes? I dunno

[Ashley · Rating 3 out of 5]

(2.5/5⭐, rounded up)

[Simone · Rating 5 out of 5]

Adrian Matejka’s charged book Somebody Else Sold the World hums and rustles and seers us with its voltage. The book’s title riffs on an opening epigraph by David Bowie, as does a poem cycle that punctuates each section: “You’re face to face / with the man who sold the world.” By slanting the Bowie quote, Matejka provides a guide for the book on multiple levels—musical, political, historical, racial, and familial.

One of the many things I admire about this book is how encompassing it is and the ways in which Matejka is able to deftly shift registers from self-deprecating humor—“I once got so high, I couldn’t / remember if I loved me as much / as I loved you”—to the devastation of the simple declaration—“Behind the edge of you, bricks go through windows & bullets / go through people.” The motif of “bullet” arcs its way through the manuscript most saliently in his 5-sectioned poem “Bullet Parts,” which closes with the brutal acknowledgment:

A gun is always more
important than the people
in front of it. Here we are
again: so many Black women
& Black men in front of it.

But Matjejka doesn’t just sit us in America’s seeping lesions of racism and pandemic despair, to fester; instead, he pulls us out of the rot into the light. In an interview, Matejka states that “poets are musicians, we just use assonance instead of adagios.” Using citation and salutation, Matejka is in conversation with multiple musicians: Prince, Frank Ocean, Funkadelic, Radiohead, Lana Del Ray, Eric Satie, and others. In using music to balance the violence that scaffolds his poetry, Matejka invites the reader to enter a connective tissue of music and culture where he has “all of us bopping like / the last platinum jam in the stack.”