Constellation Route

by Matthew Olzmann

Constellation Route uses the form of the letter to explore issues related to contemporary American the environment, race, love, grief, friendship, violence, and spirituality. The book is largely a metaphysical tribute to both the Post Office and the act of letter writing as a way to understand and create meaningful connections with the world at large.

Genres: Poetry, Grad School

100 pages, Paperback

First published January 18, 2022

Reviews

[Benjamin Niespodziany · Rating 5 out of 5]

Best writing advice/writing prompt I ever received was from Matthew Olzmann - "Start with a joke, end with a prayer." This book is wondrous.

[Jolene · Rating 4 out of 5]

I often place books on hold at the library without noting where I heard of them or why I want to read them. This was one of those. So thanks, past-Me, for making a good choice. This was a collection I looked forward to picking up each morning.

Olzmann writes narrative poems in the style of letters (which, it could be argued, all poems are). He certainly has his corny, on-the-nose moments -- he is a writer of his time, after all -- but what sticks with you is the work's playfulness, its genuine curiosity, its honesty. It may be interesting to pair some of these poems with John Green's The Anthropocene Reviewed.

From "Letter to the Person Who, During the Q&A Session after the Reading, Asked for Career Advice" (13)

If I could do it over, I'd suggest an entry level position
standing by a river bank,
or a middle management opportunity
winding like fog through the sugar maples of New England.

From "Letter to the Person Who Carved His Initials into the Oldest Living Longleaf Pine in North America" (79)

Tell me what it's like to live without
curiosity, without awe. To sail
on clear water, rolling your eyes
at the kelp reefs swaying
beneath you... To discover
something primordial and holy.
To have the smell of the earth
welcome you to everywhere.
To take it all in and then,
to reach for you knife.

My favorites were "Letter to the Person Who Carved His Initials into the Oldest Living Longleaf Pine in North America" (79), "Letter to William Shatner" (20), "Letter or Jennifer Chang and Evan Rhodes Regarding a Variation in the Fabric of Time (48), and "Letter to Matthew Olzmann from Ross White, Re: The Tardigrade"

[Kathleen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Letter to the Horse You Rode in On

From this day forth, let it be understood: as one
of God’s most graceful innovations, you—
dear horse—are entitled to certain provisions
under the law. Granted, this law is one
I just made up, but those who acknowledge
its validity will adhere to the following rule:
One does not, under any circumstance, say “fuck you”
to a horse. It matters not who rode in on
the aforementioned steed. It matters not
what kind of jackassery said rider has committed.
We shall not allow even the tangential “fuck you”
to be cast upon this virtuous and sophisticated being,
such as the fuck-you-by-association commonly
phrased as: Fuck you and the horse you rode in on.
No, dear horse, you are proof that one does not
have the luxury of choosing the burden one carries.
Fate makes an animal of us all, and rides us
through the village at sunrise where we are judged.
But we designed those villages. We built them
from our worst ideas and kept expanding until
each enclave was equipped with genetically modified
pigeons and flammable tap water. The human hand
can reach from one ruined thing to the next. It can
level cities and wave goodbye and run its fingers
through your mane, and when I find you, I will
whisper: You would’ve done a better job with this place.
Unfortunately, horses don’t have any say in governance.
Except once. It’s said that the emperor Caligula
nominated his horse, Incitatus, as a Roman Consul.
We should also note: Caligula’s reign was brief.
37-41 AD. Then he was slain.

Letter to the Person Who Carved His Initials into the Oldest Living Longleaf Pine in North America

Tell me what it’s like to live without
curiosity, without awe. To sail
on clear water, rolling your eyes
at the kelp reefs swaying
beneath you, ignoring the flicker
of mermaid scales in the mist,
looking at the world and feeling
only boredom. To stand
on the precipice of some wild valley,
the eagles circling, a herd of caribou
booming below, and to yawn
with indifference. To discover
something primordial and holy.
To have the smell of the earth
welcome you to everywhere.
To take it all in, and then,
to reach for your knife.

[Nell · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beautifully written and subtly poignant. I had to sit with my thoughts and reflect for 10 minutes after reading, and I couldn’t move because of it. And I was conscious 30 pages from the end that I loved what I was reading, and I was sad for it to be over, and I was sad that I wouldn’t be able to read it for the first time again. But at least I can read it for the second now, and then the third.

[emily]

‘Do you ever float on your back and scrutinize the stars and see unexpected figures among them, like maybe shapes of other whales? —Do those stories lend structure to your days and nights? Do they comfort the nervous waters, constellate the disjointed heavens, and render the marvellous in a manner that you can endure? Do you believe them?’

Managed to only like/appreciate the one with whales, so I can't really 'rate' it. Prefer Mezzanines a whole lot more.

[Abby · Rating 5 out of 5]

the best epistles since the apostle paul
read this book in its entirety in a single evening whilst in elegiac mourning over the unforetold death of my computer which left me with no other means of diversion

[Syd · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Tell me that's not random; these suggest a connection among incongruent paths, recognizable shapes made by disparate points of light." - "Constellation Route"

I read "Letter to the Person Who Carved His Initials into the Oldest Living Longleaf Pine in North America" online, and loved it. It was suggested to me to read the anthology that poem comes from (as I had wanted to try reading more poetry for a while), and that ended up being a great suggestion.

I thoroughly enjoyed this anthology-- the concept of a central mythological post office where all poems are letters addressed to a concept/person/object was really well done. The "non-letter" poems taking their names from definitions in the US Postal Service glossary was equally cool, phrases such as "Phantom Route" "Star Route" "Return to Sender" scattered around a postal workers handbook are certainly evocative and deserved exploration.

Recurrent themes in this anthology include environmentalism, mixed-race identity, technology and the internet, modern dystopia. Often times, these ideas are woven together-- for example, "Letter to Matthew Olzmann from Ross White, Re: The Tardigrade" and "Letter to Justin, Age Seven, Regarding Any Possible Mixed-Race Anxieties Which One Might Experience in the Near or Distant Future" both address feelings regarding a biracial identity through the metaphor of tardigrades and salamanders. "Letter to the Connecticut River Monster" explores the modern internet landscape (and seeking those who have no online presence) through the metaphor of a slow moving river that seems to swallow anyone who nears it. Sometimes the social messages were a little too heavy-handed and explicit, but every poem ended in a thoughtful way that it balanced out.

I wanted to include some favorite excerpts, but without the rest of the poem they aren't quite as evocative. Thus, here are some of my favorite poems from this collection:

- Letter to the Person Who Carved His Initials into the Oldest Living Longleaf Pine in North America
- Letter to Someone Living Fifty Years from Now
- Phantom Route
- Letter to Matthew Olzmann from Ross White, Re: The Tardigrade
- Letter to Justin, Age Seven, Regarding Any Possible Mixed-Race Anxieties Which One Might Experience in the Near or Distant Future
- Return to Sender
- Letter to the Connecticut River Monster
- Psychopomp

[Sam · Rating 5 out of 5]

Matt Olzmann. This guy. Come on. I mean, what? Who else is this funny? Who else can transmogrify such ridiculous things into meaningful? He should be shown to young kids so they can know how awesome poetry can be and then grow up to be awesome poets themselves.

I enjoyed the letter poems that comprise most of this collection. Highlights: 52-Hertz Whale, Traffic Light in Durham, Q&A Session, Bruce Wayne, Horse you Rode in on, Steve Orlen, Flock of Pigeons… sorry, that list is way too long. Then there’s also the gun violence poem. God. Heart breaking. And the amazingly apparent love.

These pieces can be read quickly, but reward multiple readings. Share them with your friends, with your students, with your families. Get this guy some more press!

You’re holding a carton of eggs.
You’re holding a carton of milk.
You’re holding the unspoken history
of each kindness you have received
though have not always felt you deserved.

And now it’s just a single loaf of bread.
That’s what you hold. And you are here
to place that offering
in someone else’s hands.
(Letter to a younger version of myself who had never known hunger)

[Katie · Rating 3 out of 5]

I heard "Letter Written While Waiting in Line at Comic Con" read by the author on the Ours Poetica YouTube channel, and loved it (especially the first stanza). It is, of course, far and away the best poem in this collection and the one that spoke to me the most, and made me think of people I cherish in my life and how I feel when I am with them.

I really liked this collection's premise and its connection to the postal service, and the idea that every poem is a letter to or from someone, sometimes to a person, to a canyon, to a car's radiator, to the future, from a flying saucer, or from the Roman Empire.

My other favorites in this collection were "Letter to the Person Who Carved His Initials into the Oldest Living Longleaf Pine in North America" and "Letter to Matthew Olzmann, Sent Telepathically from a Flock of Pigeons While Surrounding Him on a Park Bench in Detroit, Michigan.

[Darya Clark · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was the first book of poetry I have read cover to cover. It obviously means that I was bound to dislike some of the pieces. However, I feel really drawn to a lot of his writing. I felt really big and small and human and melancholic and loved while reading this. And of course, it being an ode to my dear sweet post office was just extremely awesome.

[Kane · Rating 5 out of 5]

Really good poems

[Nathan Harris · Rating 5 out of 5]

I normally don’t read a lot of poetry, but this book was recommended to me. And it was a good one!

[bees · Rating 2 out of 5]

this collection was so disappointing. everything i love about olzmann was stretched out and weakened. his conversational style and casual tone run themselves into the wall and just read as a man griping about societal issues at large. at some points it felt more like being lectured or overwhelmed with facts, reading like a chopped up foul tones instagram infographic in a poor excuse for a poem. some of the standout poems in this collection that i did like (which was less than a quarter of the total amount of poems) have already been published for years online. it's a bittersweet thing to see a poem you love on the page finally, but have it cheapens by being surrounded by mediocrity and much less tension or drive. often a poem meanders until a random stanza (usually the very last one, rarely in the middle, and never the beginning) and suddenly it feels like olzmann stops talking and starts writing. but then the poem comes to halt, either ending or continuing on with just his thoughts. he doesn't try to push the boundary of language or craft, instead just walking in circles talking to himself. quite disappointing after i anticipated this collection so much after his sophomore one. i really cannot get over the fact i read a poem about a pigeon lecturing about the food crisis in the most plain and boring cadence and style.

[Courtney LeBlanc · Rating 5 out of 5]

A collection of poems that include letters to the poet himself (written by other poets), letters places (a canyon), to himself sent "telepathically from a flock of pigeons", letters to future people, and current (presumably real) people. Interspersed with these letter poems are poems that contain a fact about the US Postal Service, but that have little, if anything, to do with mail.

from Letter to Bruce Wayne: "A good place to hide a sociopath is a full-length mirror. / A good place to hide that mirror is in the heart of America."

from Letter to the Horse You Rode in on: "No, dear horse, you are proof that one does not / have the luxury of choosing the burden / one carries. Fate makes an animal of us all, and rides us / through the village at sunrise where we are judged. / But we designed those villages. We build them / from our worst ideas..."

[Allison Mollenkamp · Rating 5 out of 5]

In college we read “Mountain Dew Commercial Disguised as a Love Poem,” and it stuck with me the past six years. I finally looked up who wrote it and found this book, which I loved a lot.

[Dea]

Met him today and of course I tell him “you’re my best friend’s favorite poet” and of course he answers “so not yours?” Anyway, this was incredible

[Anthony Immergluck · Rating 3 out of 5]

There's a lot I really like about this collection, and it frustrated me precisely because it had so much going for it. First off, I love the central conceit. Several of the best poems (including the spectacular final piece) revolve around terms from the postal service. Several others take the form of letters to and from personal acquaintances of the poet, literary figures, animals, objects, etc. Those ones, I'm sorry to say, often felt too cutesy for me. But it's all tied together thoughtfully into a theme of climate and political despair. The letters are a dying form of human connection, built to be physical and lasting but destined to be forgotten. There are great ideas here, and enough great individual poems to make up a stunning chapbook.

But overall, I wish these poems did less telling and more exploring. Some of the political pieces read more like impassioned, well-written Twitter threads than poems. When a poem explores ambivalence or uncertainty, it tends to telegraph that too clearly, often in the form of a direct question. Metaphors are often explained explicitly, and the endings of the poems sometimes feel like summaries. The voice, typical of Olzmann, is conversational, breezy, and playful, which makes for a quick read. There's a constant attempt to inject dark humor into even darker material. Sometimes that works beautifully, but it just as often scans as semi-ironic detachment, and it quickly becomes predictable and tiresome.

It sounds like I disliked "Constellation Route," but I really didn't. It's full of wit, imagination, and righteous anger. I'm just a little disappointed in the direct, heavy-handed application of its ideas. These poems, enjoyable and clever as they often are, aren't really built to come back to over and over again. I really love poetry with layers and mysteries to uncover, and this book says what it means too clearly for my taste. Still a fan of Olzmann, though, and always interested in his work.

[Daniel Klawitter · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an admirable collection of epistolary poems rather imaginatively organized around the idea of letters themselves and frequently borrowing terminology from the United States Postal Service employee handbook. Writing that last sentence out....it doesn't necessarily sound like a promising conceit with which to organize a book of poems around, but Olzmann pulls it off and makes it look both easy and inevitable (both of which are signs of a skilled artist at work). The poetic voice at play here is fairly casual and conversational in tone but Olzmann makes some interesting metaphorical leaps, as when his letter/poem offering career advice ends with the suggestion that one could just as well become "an alpine ibex--a gravity-defying goat" in search of "wild berries to devour." But this is no overly clever or postmodern/academic experimental book in verse: Olzmann engages in frequent self-deprecations and has a keen sense of both humor and tragedy. All of the poems here feel largely accessible to me in terms of audience understanding and comprehension. And if nothing else, I think he has written at least one poem here that will go on years from now to be included in canonical poetry anthologies: "Letter to the Person Who Carved His Initials into the Oldest Living Longleaf Pine in North America". It was first reading that poem elsewhere, in fact, that initially put this book on my radar and I'm impressed by what Olzmann has accomplished.

[Gabriel Valentine · Rating 2 out of 5]

I picked this up after hearing one of Olzmann's poems on Ada Limón's The Slowdown Show. I should have guessed it, since the poem on the show was a love poem written as a Mountain Dew commercial, but the word that comes to mind with this collection is just, cringe.

I'm sorry, I wish I had a better word. It's that sort of white neoliberal guy who learned ethics from Star Trek or something- type writing. You could tell me Travis McElroy actually ghostwrote this book and I might believe you. No that's not a compliment.

From mentioning parseltongue and comic con just a few poems in (seriously, read another book.), to overexplaining and therefore killing his already... lackluster metaphors, to the overuse of the phrase "the point is..." and unoriginal "letter to..." type poems, to heavy-handed and cheesy political poems meant to be sad and sincere, this collection just did nothing for me.

Maybe I was only meant to read poetry written by grizzled and sardonic women who are like if a cigarette came to life and made everyone feel bad about their dead dad and emotionally unavailable exes. So because of that, this book was definitely not for me. It might be for someone, though. If you are a white male ages 20-35ish and wear a lot of graphic tees and have a beard and watch anime, but are like, a registered democrat. Again, not a compliment.

[Patricia N. McLaughlin · Rating 4 out of 5]

An ingenious (mostly) epistolary concept, well articulated in each missive with plenty of quotable lines. Fabulous cover art by Adam Martinakis.

From “Letter to Bruce Wayne”:
“A good place to hide a star is a galaxy.
A good place to hide a galaxy is a universe.
Look at the night sky. Justice”

From “Letter to the Connecticut River Monster”:
“In the half-light: the shape of a doe
lowers her head like a ladle to the Lethe.”

Favorite Poems:
“Letter to Bruce Wayne”
“Letter Beginning with Two Lines by Czeslaw Milosz”
“Letter to My Future Neighbors”
“Letter to a Man in Drowning in a Folktale”
“Letter to Matthew Olzmann from the Roman Empire”
“Letter to Jamaal May Regarding the Existence of Unicorns”
“Letter to Larry Levis”
“Letter to Matthew Olzmann, Sent Telepathically from a Flock of Pigeons While Surrounding Him on a Park Bench in Detroit, Michigan”
“Letter to Matthew Olzmann from a Traffic Light in Durham, North Carolina”
“Constellation Route”
“Return to Sender”
“Letter to a Younger Version of Myself Who Had Never Known Hunger”
“Letter to Someone Living Fifty Years from Now”
“Conversion” (Wow!)

[Jade Driscoll · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars. This is the second collection of Olzmann's that I've read, and my primary "qualm" with this one is the same as it was then: every single poem could be shortened by 50% or more, and every single poem would be improved. There are some beautiful images / sounds, and there are some lines that will knock me out in the best way possible, but rarely did holistic poems speak to me, as the potential power was buried beneath heavy-handed metaphors, WAY too much exposition, forced casualness (ironic, I know, but it's like "hello, fellow kids" kind of forced), and tangential anecdotes. I did, however, like the overarching epistolary themes of the collection and its contributions from other writers.

In order of appearance, my favorite poems:
"Letter to the Person Who, During the Q&A Session after the Reading, Asked for Career Advice"
"Letter to Justin, Age Seven, Regarding Any Possible Mixed-Race Anxieties Which One Might Experience in the Near or Distant Future"
"Letter to My Future Neighbors"
"Letter to the Person Who Carved His Initials into the Oldest Living Longleaf Pine in North America"
"Return to Sender"

[Idyll · Rating 5 out of 5]

The last time I felt this way about a poet was when I read the works of Wisława Szymborska. Matthew Olzmann possesses a rare gift—a knack for infusing humor and imagery into his introspection, creating a resonance that's both universal and deep.

Contrary to its purported epistolary form, Olzmann's writing transcends any confines of form. His verses brim with personal gravitas, each poem resembling a delectable slice of cake, richly layered with emotion and generously frosted with unique insights.

About “The First Official Post Office of the American Colonies (1639”), I am thinking of an alternate scenario where some poor bloke gets not one, not two, but six copies of the same letter from different ships, detailing the rowdy shenanigans at the very same tavern where that letter was hastily penned! To top it off, he's not even the intended recipient. Drunken tales adrift on the high seas!

(I sent the "Letter to the Person Who, During the Q&A Session after the Reading, Asked for Career Advice" to my niblings in high school!)

[Emily Shearer · Rating 5 out of 5]

"This always stuns me: the way an envelope arrives, how we
still reach toward one another, how this correspondence
endures: one figure approaches your door with a satchel
full of sand, pigeon feathers, sorrows, and names."
from "Conversion"

I've been playing with punctuation lately. You know, that old example, "Let's eat, Grandma!" vs. "Let's eat Grandma!" First of all, any poem with the word /satchel/, any poet who writes about a satchel, whether it's a satchel-carrying mailman or a satchel full of . . .-, well, that has my heart. But read that last line again:" . . ., and names." And names what? Whom? This book names the letter writers, the mail carriers, the pigeons. It names the correspondents and their correspondences, and they correspond to all the letters we've never written, that Olzmann has.

[Yordanos · Rating 2 out of 5]

My first encounter with Matthew Olzmann was on the Poetry Unbound podcast when Padraig read Olzmann's Mountain Dew Commercial Disguised as a Love poem poem. I was so delightfully taken by that poem that I've since been looking to read more poetry by him, and this was my first foray into that pursuit.

All in all, this was an ok collection -- I kept wanting to experience the same feeling as my first encounter with the poems in this collection but none came close. There are still some cool and interesting things Olzmann does with these poems such as centering characters usually seen/discussed as props, peripherals, and side characters.

We shall see how I'll fare with my next Olzmann collection; I'm hoping for better (fingers crossed).

[heb · Rating 3 out of 5]

Letter to the Person Who Carved His Initials into the Oldest Living Longleaf Pine in North America
—Southern Pines, NC

Tell me what it’s like to live without
curiosity, without awe. To sail
on clear water, rolling your eyes
at the kelp reefs swaying
beneath you, ignoring the flicker
of mermaid scales in the mist,
looking at the world and feeling
only boredom. To stand
on the precipice of some wild valley,
the eagles circling, a herd of caribou
booming below, and to yawn
with indifference. To discover
something primordial and holy.
To have the smell of the earth
welcome you to everywhere.
To take it all in and then,
to reach for your knife.

[Isaac Salazar · Rating 2 out of 5]

“Not an individual star route but a constellation.”

I like the premise of this collection—partly a dedication to outward conversations with other poets (like Jennifer Chang and Steve Orlen), the other part to the most odd things—but I had a hard time finishing this. And it’s definitely from the attempts at humor or casualness. I couldn’t get behind the tone, and it made me feel like nothing was really being said. It felt like Olzmann was dancing around his subjects and that’s it.

[Chris · Rating 5 out of 5]

So many good poems. Not a bad one in the bunch, and many I want to hoard as treasure.

Olzmann manages to intertwine the ordinary and mundane with personal anxieties and frustrations, social commentary, and philosophical ponderings, all with a few, simple words. So many associative connections so beautifully expressed.

I want to share them all with you.

[Cherry · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not awful by any means but also not super memorable. Funny sometimes but the humor falls flat at others. The social commentary offered was trite and not explored thoroughly, often just dropped in a line or two without being expanded upon further. Or it was very vague. But I liked the idea behind the collection and the poems about the postal system. Might reread later on though!

[Brit · Rating 5 out of 5]

I had the pleasure of attending a live reading, and he speaks just like his poems sound. All of his poems are thought provoking with an edge of humor. There are many new favorite poems I have, and he has some great lines in them. Amazing work!

[Edvin · Rating 1 out of 5]

Yeah... I really just don't think this is my style of poetry. It reads to me as if the subreddit /r/im14andthisisdeep met the Manic Pixie Dream Girl archetype and decided to collab on a student project. Happy to see so many others derived pleasure out of it though! Because for me it's a flat 1/5.