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Bread and Circus
“Discerning and significant.” — Poetry Foundation
“A sharp memoir in verse.” — LitHub
This powerful and timely collection of autobiographical poems from Yale Young Poets Award Winner and Philadelphia’s former Poet Laureate Airea D. Matthews about the economics of class is a brilliant intellectual and artistic contribution to the ongoing conversation about American inequality.
As a former student of economics, Airea D. Matthews was fascinated and disturbed by 18th-century Scottish economist Adam Smith’s magnum opus The Wealth of Nations. Now, she presents a direct challenge to Smith’s theory of the invisible hand, which claims self-interest is the key to optimal economic outcomes. By juxtaposing redacted texts by Smith and the French Marxist Guy Debord with autobiographical prose and poems, Bread and Circus personally offers how self-interest fails when it reduces people to commodity and spectacle.
A layered collection to be read and reread, with poems that range from tragic to humorous, in forms as varied and nuanced as the ideas the book considers, Bread and Circus asks what it is to have survived, indeed to have flourished, and at what cost. “Full of humane wisdom, this powerful volume forces readers to acknowledge systemic inequity” ( Publishers Weekly , starred review) and is ideal for fans of Elizabeth Alexander, Natalie Diaz, Eve Ewing, and Gregory Pardlo.
“A sharp memoir in verse.” — LitHub
This powerful and timely collection of autobiographical poems from Yale Young Poets Award Winner and Philadelphia’s former Poet Laureate Airea D. Matthews about the economics of class is a brilliant intellectual and artistic contribution to the ongoing conversation about American inequality.
As a former student of economics, Airea D. Matthews was fascinated and disturbed by 18th-century Scottish economist Adam Smith’s magnum opus The Wealth of Nations. Now, she presents a direct challenge to Smith’s theory of the invisible hand, which claims self-interest is the key to optimal economic outcomes. By juxtaposing redacted texts by Smith and the French Marxist Guy Debord with autobiographical prose and poems, Bread and Circus personally offers how self-interest fails when it reduces people to commodity and spectacle.
A layered collection to be read and reread, with poems that range from tragic to humorous, in forms as varied and nuanced as the ideas the book considers, Bread and Circus asks what it is to have survived, indeed to have flourished, and at what cost. “Full of humane wisdom, this powerful volume forces readers to acknowledge systemic inequity” ( Publishers Weekly , starred review) and is ideal for fans of Elizabeth Alexander, Natalie Diaz, Eve Ewing, and Gregory Pardlo.
112 pages, Hardcover
First published May 30, 2023
16 people are currently reading
3984 people want to read
About the author
Airea Dee Matthews
1 book42 followersAirea D. Matthews’ first collection of poems is the critically acclaimed Simulacra, which received the prestigious 2016 Yale Series of Younger Poets Award. The collection explores longing, desire, and inheritance with power, insight, and intense emotion. New Yorker critic Dan Chiasson describes Matthews’s experimental forms as, “Fugues, text messages to the dead, imagined outtakes from Wittgenstein, tart mini-operas, fairy tales: Matthews is virtuosic, frantic, and darkly, very darkly, funny.” Matthews is also the author of Bread and Circus (Scribner US and Picador UK, 2023), a memoir-in-verse that is a bold poetic reckoning with the realities of class and race and their intergenerational effects.
For her writing, Matthews earned a 2020 Pew Fellowship as well as the 2017 Margaret Walker For My People award. In 2016, she received both the Rona Jaffe Foundation Writers’ Award and the Louis Untermeyer Scholarship in Poetry from the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Poetry Ireland, The New York Times, Georgia Review, Callaloo, Gulf Coast, Best American Poetry, American Poet, The Rumpus, Tin House, Los Angeles Review of Books, Harvard Review, and elsewhere.
Matthews holds a B.A. in Economics from the University of Pennsylvania as well as an M.F.A. from the Helen Zell Writers’ Program and an M.P.A. from the Gerald Ford School of Public Policy, both at the University of Michigan. In 2022, she was named Philadelphia’s Poet Laureate. She is an associate professor and co-directs the poetry program at Bryn Mawr College, where she was presented the Lindback Distinguished Teaching award.
For her writing, Matthews earned a 2020 Pew Fellowship as well as the 2017 Margaret Walker For My People award. In 2016, she received both the Rona Jaffe Foundation Writers’ Award and the Louis Untermeyer Scholarship in Poetry from the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Poetry Ireland, The New York Times, Georgia Review, Callaloo, Gulf Coast, Best American Poetry, American Poet, The Rumpus, Tin House, Los Angeles Review of Books, Harvard Review, and elsewhere.
Matthews holds a B.A. in Economics from the University of Pennsylvania as well as an M.F.A. from the Helen Zell Writers’ Program and an M.P.A. from the Gerald Ford School of Public Policy, both at the University of Michigan. In 2022, she was named Philadelphia’s Poet Laureate. She is an associate professor and co-directs the poetry program at Bryn Mawr College, where she was presented the Lindback Distinguished Teaching award.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 85 reviews
June 26, 2023
Thank you to Scribner and to Goodreads Giveaways for an ARC of this remarkable book of poetry by Airea Dee Matthews, Philadelphia's Poet Laureate.
I knew this author had something special when the very first poem was printed within what I thought was a probability graph, where p = probability of success and q = probability of failure. As it turned out, it was actually a no less esoteric graph depicting the ratio relationship between price and quantity, a kind of indictment of classism. But, read it in both contexts, and see if you don't think it works both ways. I think it does.
In my original interpretative reading of the symbolic graph, the poet's words of lamentation straddle the axes, charting out the impacts of intergenerational trauma, ineffective attempts at substantive change, competing priorities, the high cost of demands for equity, and serious questions about the return on investment, when dismantling our society's systemic institutions looks to be a long haul process.
The poet is very talented, introducing what was right in front of us, but somehow we never noticed or acknowledged. Capitalism bleeds into every social institution, making every special occasion an act of soulless consumerism.
Matthews makes us see what makes a full life can be the same thing that empties it out. There is very little true goodwill in a world scrabbling for angles and subterfuge. Many folks have to spend their limited energies trying to avoid what they don't want, and there's nothing left to pursue anything more than that.
When you have less than nothing, everything you gain is purchased with your trauma and pain. Even a child can see, as this memoir in verse attests, that those who have too much already will increase even more without effort, and those who have too little can expect even that to be taken away.
Where is hope in all this? For some, hope costs too damned much.
The privileged have so much abundance, they can afford risk. Those without cannot even afford to be decisive.
In yet another instance of turning our understanding on its head, the poet asserts that it isn't history (a record of what happens) that repeats; it is deletion, the deliberate excision and exclusion (no record, as if it never happened) that repeats.
It is in this context that the poet demonstrates that some truths are abject horrors, and none of them care about your sensibilities.
So where is redemption? It may not be something you can point to, see, or grasp. But it does exist on some level. It is vital to share and pass on one's stories. To be remembered is the most sure way to transcend death, and maybe life as well.
I knew this author had something special when the very first poem was printed within what I thought was a probability graph, where p = probability of success and q = probability of failure. As it turned out, it was actually a no less esoteric graph depicting the ratio relationship between price and quantity, a kind of indictment of classism. But, read it in both contexts, and see if you don't think it works both ways. I think it does.
In my original interpretative reading of the symbolic graph, the poet's words of lamentation straddle the axes, charting out the impacts of intergenerational trauma, ineffective attempts at substantive change, competing priorities, the high cost of demands for equity, and serious questions about the return on investment, when dismantling our society's systemic institutions looks to be a long haul process.
The poet is very talented, introducing what was right in front of us, but somehow we never noticed or acknowledged. Capitalism bleeds into every social institution, making every special occasion an act of soulless consumerism.
Matthews makes us see what makes a full life can be the same thing that empties it out. There is very little true goodwill in a world scrabbling for angles and subterfuge. Many folks have to spend their limited energies trying to avoid what they don't want, and there's nothing left to pursue anything more than that.
When you have less than nothing, everything you gain is purchased with your trauma and pain. Even a child can see, as this memoir in verse attests, that those who have too much already will increase even more without effort, and those who have too little can expect even that to be taken away.
Where is hope in all this? For some, hope costs too damned much.
The privileged have so much abundance, they can afford risk. Those without cannot even afford to be decisive.
In yet another instance of turning our understanding on its head, the poet asserts that it isn't history (a record of what happens) that repeats; it is deletion, the deliberate excision and exclusion (no record, as if it never happened) that repeats.
It is in this context that the poet demonstrates that some truths are abject horrors, and none of them care about your sensibilities.
So where is redemption? It may not be something you can point to, see, or grasp. But it does exist on some level. It is vital to share and pass on one's stories. To be remembered is the most sure way to transcend death, and maybe life as well.
April 24, 2024
In meeting with Airea, I asked her how capital relates to hereditary addiction, and her answer was something interesting. She responded by telling me the definition of economy: “The Latin word has its origin at the Ancient Greek's oikonomia or oikonomos. The word's first part oikos means ‘house’, and the second part nemein means ‘to manage’.” Economy is the management of the house. This book points to how we, as individuals, have become reduced to products, commodities, and objects, all while we continue to acquire more objects, which then becomes representational of the supposed “wealth” we possess. Addiction, in this sense, is rooted in the inability to manage or possess oneself as a commodity in this world. Because your utility fails the world, it discards you. You become expendable, and thus you treat your body according to its supposed “value” ascribed to it. Addiction becomes management of one’s own economy, one’s own self, when one can no longer keep up with the larger economy.
February 21, 2023
This beautiful book is a collection of poetry that takes aim at Adam Smith’s The Wealth of Nations. Matthews ingeniously inserts faded pages of Adam’s and Marxist Debord’s texts whereon she bolds certain words or letters to create a statement. The poetry is weighty with tragic stories of poverty and drug addiction. The artistic merit of this work is undeniable. When reflecting on the numerous economic and social systems over the centuries, and the uprisings that created change after change only to end at this moment with lives described by Matthews, one wonders if there is more to the story, something that we might never be able to solve.
February 7, 2023
Airea D. Matthews is Philly's current poet laureate and I've followed her work since she won the 2016 Yale Series of Younger Poets Award. In Bread and Circus her collection of poetry analyzes how class and socioeconomic status impact us on an individual and collective level. These poems range from making the reader laugh out loud to seriously considering the ways we have been impacted by capitalism on a personal and collective level. I really enjoyed the balance of poetry presented among this consideration of American inequality and the systems that impact our ability to look out for one another. In a society that prizes individualism over community this collection gives the reader lots of food for thought and consideration.
Thank you to the author and publisher for the e-arc copy!
Thank you to the author and publisher for the e-arc copy!
October 2, 2023
Completely original, this collection of poetry is a scathing criticism of capitalism and its commodification of vulnerable people. Matthews skilfully incorporates Adam Smith’s economic texts alongside the Marxist writings of Guy Debord throughout the collection, picking apart capitalist structures through the stories of her own family and friends, and touching on a range of topics, including motherhood, Blackness, poverty, power and substance abuse. There is also a wide variety of poetry styles in this collection, taking on many different tones. I listened to the audiobook, which Matthews reads beautifully. A very impactful and unique collection, I look forward to reading more of Matthews’ work.
February 16, 2023
Absolutely Amazing !
This book really left me at a loss for words, The word play, gripping storytelling, and format are all things I look for in a good book. And when I tell you this book was a game-changer I mean it. Previous works from Airea never failed to amaze me, but this has shown that she is beyond a level that is comprehendible.
This book really left me at a loss for words, The word play, gripping storytelling, and format are all things I look for in a good book. And when I tell you this book was a game-changer I mean it. Previous works from Airea never failed to amaze me, but this has shown that she is beyond a level that is comprehendible.
December 4, 2023
Thank you to Scribner, Airea D. Matthews, and Goodreads for an ARC of this book of poetry.
I read this book months ago and just reread it. My first time through, I was caught up on the economics being used in the poems. My reread has allowed me to ignore the economic principles in favor of the artistic and substantive meaning of the poems. Economics scares me for reasons I can't fully express. But it is unnecessary for understanding this collection. This is a heavy collection - well-crafted and emotional. It's a lovely collection I'll likely revisit again.
I read this book months ago and just reread it. My first time through, I was caught up on the economics being used in the poems. My reread has allowed me to ignore the economic principles in favor of the artistic and substantive meaning of the poems. Economics scares me for reasons I can't fully express. But it is unnecessary for understanding this collection. This is a heavy collection - well-crafted and emotional. It's a lovely collection I'll likely revisit again.
Read
August 16, 2024Very cool audiobook—not only is the author a great reader, but they did something really cool when adapting her erasure poems involving secondary voices placing the erasures in context—and those secondary readers were from her family! Recommended, and I bet this would be cool to read/listen to simultaneously.
December 18, 2023
A riveting collection of poems and essays surrounding the life of the author and various challenges she has faced. Complete with truly alluring techniques in style and format; breaking traditional poetic boundaries. A sad tale, but also beautifully portrayed and emotional.
Read
December 28, 2023A powerful collection with a wonderfuly inventive approach to form and wide engagement with the personal and political.
December 10, 2023
A must read! Deeply moving and inspirational.
Read
September 30, 2024“Mint the brow into the field / Until the mist to chill does not yield”
January 30, 2023
THIS WAS EVERYTHING.
The beautiful thing about poetry is that so few words can slap you the hardest, leaving the brightest scar. I am thankful to Airea Dee Matthews, NetGalley, and Scribner for granting me advanced access to Bread and Circus before it hits shelves on May 30, 2023.
Bread and Circus speaks volumes louder than any book I've ever read. We get insight into what it's like to be a woman of color in a time when discrimination was the only. However, in white people's minds, where hate bled into every conversation and action. That level of strength rang true and empowering for many daughters, sisters, mothers, and grandmothers going forward. This piece was heartbreakingly beautiful and can stand the test of time in eradicating the bigots and inviting love into the picture.
Magnificent.
The beautiful thing about poetry is that so few words can slap you the hardest, leaving the brightest scar. I am thankful to Airea Dee Matthews, NetGalley, and Scribner for granting me advanced access to Bread and Circus before it hits shelves on May 30, 2023.
Bread and Circus speaks volumes louder than any book I've ever read. We get insight into what it's like to be a woman of color in a time when discrimination was the only. However, in white people's minds, where hate bled into every conversation and action. That level of strength rang true and empowering for many daughters, sisters, mothers, and grandmothers going forward. This piece was heartbreakingly beautiful and can stand the test of time in eradicating the bigots and inviting love into the picture.
Magnificent.
May 17, 2024
i was originally interested in this book simply because of the word circus in the title, however, i was blown away by how good this poetry collection was. the interaction of the texts with the poetry was incredible, and it was very expertly crafted as a collection. it was at points devastating, angry, and incredibly smart. one of my favorite poetry collections of all time!
February 21, 2023
Bread and Curcus is a poetry collection that focuses on the inequalities in America as a person of color and the class system. It also analyzes the circumstances of these inequalities and tries to find a "why" for situations that POC face.
Overall, I think this poetry collection was very well-written and gave a lot to ponder. Some of the language did go over my head, but I do not have as much experience with this type of poetry. What I did get, felt gut-wrenching, melancholy, and uneasy (which I think is the point).
Some of the poems were hard for me to read due to the faded text effects. I hope the final copy is easier translated visually in a print final copy or the publisher chooses not to use it.
*Thank you so much Netgalley, Scribner, and Airea D. Matthews for providing me with an Arc copy*
Overall, I think this poetry collection was very well-written and gave a lot to ponder. Some of the language did go over my head, but I do not have as much experience with this type of poetry. What I did get, felt gut-wrenching, melancholy, and uneasy (which I think is the point).
Some of the poems were hard for me to read due to the faded text effects. I hope the final copy is easier translated visually in a print final copy or the publisher chooses not to use it.
*Thank you so much Netgalley, Scribner, and Airea D. Matthews for providing me with an Arc copy*
April 12, 2023
During Poetry Month, I'm trying to read a) a genre I hardly read and b) poetry collections from authors who I feel are vastly different from one another in style, tone, themes, and background. So far, I've read Goldenrod: Poems, Pig: Poems, and this one, and they could not be more distinct.
Bread and Circus is filled with moving, heavy, personal, and cultural reflections on how individuals are impacted by economic and capitalistic structures. (To be honest, I may not have gotten that without the help of the book's blurb.) Really, it's a series of really intense, sometimes hard-to-read poems about Blackness, violence, drug use, race, abuse, and trauma. The author writes about her own family and friends: her drug-addicted dad who used to work for Amtrak, her drug-addicted best friend who died in a motel in Detroit, her depressed mother watching TV on a Serta mattress, her four-year-old daughter who asks her what the n-word means.
If you like poetry that experiments with different styles in one volume, you will like this. Some are more traditional poems in verse (there's even a Shakespearean style sonnet), some are poetic prose, some are a sort of blackout/highlight style of poetry in which the author takes sections of the economist Adam Smith's work and bolds words in it to make its own poem. I imagine this will come across well in print, although it was a little hard to read in digital.
Thank you to Scribner for the ARC via Netgalley.
Bread and Circus is filled with moving, heavy, personal, and cultural reflections on how individuals are impacted by economic and capitalistic structures. (To be honest, I may not have gotten that without the help of the book's blurb.) Really, it's a series of really intense, sometimes hard-to-read poems about Blackness, violence, drug use, race, abuse, and trauma. The author writes about her own family and friends: her drug-addicted dad who used to work for Amtrak, her drug-addicted best friend who died in a motel in Detroit, her depressed mother watching TV on a Serta mattress, her four-year-old daughter who asks her what the n-word means.
If you like poetry that experiments with different styles in one volume, you will like this. Some are more traditional poems in verse (there's even a Shakespearean style sonnet), some are poetic prose, some are a sort of blackout/highlight style of poetry in which the author takes sections of the economist Adam Smith's work and bolds words in it to make its own poem. I imagine this will come across well in print, although it was a little hard to read in digital.
Thank you to Scribner for the ARC via Netgalley.
May 22, 2023
Thank you, GoodReads, for the ARC I received in the giveaway.
This is a 2.5 in that if 1 was hate and wouldn't waste spit if on fire, 5 is I'm in a love filled committed relationship, this is the middle ground where I am indifferent.
It was HARD.
A small, thin l, less than 100 page poetry book took me at least a month when it should have been less than an afternoon. But that's why I kept at it.
I can't love (5 ⭐️) this because it would be like giving the same to Anne Frank because I loved learning of their suffering.
But I can't hate (1⭐️) it for the same reason.
I couldn't/you shouldn't rush through a book like this. A lot of the poems had me just setting the whole book down for a few days.
Many parts/sections I (thankfully) could not understand, and it was completely lost on me. This was probably about half of the book. So, taking that into consideration, the parts I could relate to are 5⭐️ because people I love or myself are heard. But that shouldn't devalue the parts I don't get. I hope I never have to relate to them, but I appreciate that they are there for those who can relate and need a voice for them. And as I grow and mature, I may come to a place where I do understand.
Here is a list of pieces I love/relate to/make me feel heard:
On Real Costs
'80 Child's Play
PTSD
elegy for the moaner, 2016
Positive Curvature
We Was Kings
Haunting Axioms
Goodnight Gibbous Moon: A Wake-up Story
This is a 2.5 in that if 1 was hate and wouldn't waste spit if on fire, 5 is I'm in a love filled committed relationship, this is the middle ground where I am indifferent.
It was HARD.
A small, thin l, less than 100 page poetry book took me at least a month when it should have been less than an afternoon. But that's why I kept at it.
I can't love (5 ⭐️) this because it would be like giving the same to Anne Frank because I loved learning of their suffering.
But I can't hate (1⭐️) it for the same reason.
I couldn't/you shouldn't rush through a book like this. A lot of the poems had me just setting the whole book down for a few days.
Many parts/sections I (thankfully) could not understand, and it was completely lost on me. This was probably about half of the book. So, taking that into consideration, the parts I could relate to are 5⭐️ because people I love or myself are heard. But that shouldn't devalue the parts I don't get. I hope I never have to relate to them, but I appreciate that they are there for those who can relate and need a voice for them. And as I grow and mature, I may come to a place where I do understand.
Here is a list of pieces I love/relate to/make me feel heard:
On Real Costs
'80 Child's Play
PTSD
elegy for the moaner, 2016
Positive Curvature
We Was Kings
Haunting Axioms
Goodnight Gibbous Moon: A Wake-up Story
June 1, 2023
There is some truly excellent poetry in this volume, poetry that is personal and moving and expressive. There's a lot of erasure poetry using texts related to capitalism and finance and regulation that sometimes worked and other times was too poorly formatted for Kindle to be read as it should be. My primary criticism of the collection is that there is too much in it, and that it's not well-organized or very cohesive. Abrupt jumps from topic to topic or from one method to another can be great, and might have worked well here, but the poems seem haphazardly ordered, and even though Matthews presents strong pieces throughout the book, it's hard to understand why they've been placed they way they are, and what meaning, if any, readers should take from that. The over-stuffed-ness of the collection hurts it some too, as there are weaker poems included that don't do the author any favors. A tighter, leaner collection of the most successful, hardest-hitting poems would have served Matthews better.
June 2, 2023
I won this book from a Goodreads giveaway.
I kind of love this book. Some of it went over my head because I don't know who these philosophers and psychologists are, but I completely understand where she (the author) is coming from. I really loved her satirical look at what heaven could be like: you have to pave the gold roads yourself, no one has halos to protect the environment, and we all live in moderately comfortable hotel rooms which we share with a bunch of strangers.
I absolutely love the design of this book, especially the cover! The inside is amazing! I love how stylized everything is and there's the whole mental puzzle where the bolded words compete with the shaded essay underneath. It was fun, if sad! I don't think the author had a very good childhood, having to run away from her alcoholic father who wanted a boy so much he called her 'boy'. I hope she's happy now. She is so intelligent and I admire her.
I kind of love this book. Some of it went over my head because I don't know who these philosophers and psychologists are, but I completely understand where she (the author) is coming from. I really loved her satirical look at what heaven could be like: you have to pave the gold roads yourself, no one has halos to protect the environment, and we all live in moderately comfortable hotel rooms which we share with a bunch of strangers.
I absolutely love the design of this book, especially the cover! The inside is amazing! I love how stylized everything is and there's the whole mental puzzle where the bolded words compete with the shaded essay underneath. It was fun, if sad! I don't think the author had a very good childhood, having to run away from her alcoholic father who wanted a boy so much he called her 'boy'. I hope she's happy now. She is so intelligent and I admire her.
May 30, 2023
overall, i liked this collection! i guess i went into this expecting it to be a bit more…subversive? than it is? but it was still an enjoyable read. picked it up partially because the cover was so gorgeous and also because i was intrigued by the title; i loved the interwoven quality of the quotes from guy debord and adam smith, but i will say that the blackout poetry wasn't my jam. it read as a bit more disposable than i would like for the poetry that i was expecting (if that makes any sense). i never stopped at the end of one of those blackout quote passages and thought, "oh, how profound!" which could be an unfair metric by which to judge poetry, but to me, poetry is about feeling, and those passages were a bit too bland for my liking. my favorite poems were "etymology" and "-icity"
thank you to scribner & the author for an arc, in exchange for an honest review!
thank you to scribner & the author for an arc, in exchange for an honest review!
August 30, 2023
So much of this is outstanding, just on FIRE. But a lot of this is uncomfortable to read, and I'm not talking about all the racial stuff. The poems about childhood (whether the author or a fictional narrator) are really savage, incredibly vivid and tough to read. Whether they are autobiographical or not, they feel incredibly real, and it's the kind of stuff that can and does happen daily. It's all well worth the read.
A side note, part of me was surprised that this was such a new book. I would have been less surprised if the book had come out 10 or 20 years ago. I'm not sure why. Does it feel like an older POV? Is this kind of story timeless, in that it's still ridiculous that kids are still growing up in these circumstances? It's a lot to think about, and I'm sure this book will stick with me for a while.
A side note, part of me was surprised that this was such a new book. I would have been less surprised if the book had come out 10 or 20 years ago. I'm not sure why. Does it feel like an older POV? Is this kind of story timeless, in that it's still ridiculous that kids are still growing up in these circumstances? It's a lot to think about, and I'm sure this book will stick with me for a while.
May 27, 2023
The juxtaposition of Adam Smith with stories of family pain, abuse, and cycles of trauma is devastating. The excerpts from Smith are so cold and calculating, quid pro quo, which sits in stark contrast against the true costs of family breakdowns and loss. How can you sum the loss of a childhood, innocence, and replace it with what's left, pain, indecision, and the definitiveness of having precise knowledge one knows one would rather not have. Further, we see this extend outwards with respect to the imbalance of power with respect to race, sex, class and the many forms of learned hatred.
Matthews plays with form throughout. I think there's something in here for everyone no matter your experience with poetry. You can clearly see why she is the Philadelphian Poet Laureate.
4.5
Matthews plays with form throughout. I think there's something in here for everyone no matter your experience with poetry. You can clearly see why she is the Philadelphian Poet Laureate.
4.5
June 27, 2023
This book is a brilliant exploration of what poetry can accomplish. It is a must-read for contemporary poets everywhere. Matthews interrogates and illuminates through her experiences, which weave through the book as confessional, narrative poems, while also exploring through the texts of Adam Smith, an economist and author of The Wealth of Nations. Matthews challenges Smith’s “the invisible hand”theory directly through erasure and experimental form. The two threads braid together to create a beautiful conversation where Matthews interrogates the truth of what it means to work within the realm of self-interest. In short, her lyric and narratives alike stimulate questions of empathy and creativity. Truly an important book.
June 29, 2023
Outstanding read. I try to read around 100 poetry books each year and this one is without a doubt one of the best collections I have come across. From a technical standpoint, Matthews has proven herself to be a lyrical master and a virtuosic storyteller, brilliantly weaving text and image, memory and imagination, fantasy and autobiography, to construct a spellbinding critique of the American spectacle of capital and consumption. I've never seen a poetry book so thoroughly deal with themes of economic inequality, exploitation, and alienation. I enjoyed her first book quite a bit but this is next level - really a remarkable accomplishment. I'll have to pick up more from Simon & Schuster after reading this.
July 1, 2023
A stunning, beyond brilliant rendering of the structural and intimate economies of race, gender, and class as memoir. Simultaneously a poetic crystallization of Adam Smith's and Guy Debord's engagements with the material of relations and resistance in the broader social world and a documentation of the labors of love, intimacy, lessons, pain memory and exchange made at poker tables, in kitchens, street corners, churches, and various theaters of the hardest experience. No punches pulled and yet, a gift of and about a gentleness that beautifully, urgently refuses to emerge without the reader's own courage and work. I can describe it forever and still not tell you about it. Read Bread and Circus.
March 6, 2024
A collection of poetry about identity, race desire, family, and survival.
from PTSD: "Point is, I get invited to parties and never show up. It's not that I don't want to go, but that I stand on the threshold contemplating what I'd do if I stayed home: Write a poem, binge a drama, refuse to call my mother, write a letter to my congressman about some issue I haven't taken the time to understand, stand fifteen goddamn minutes in the doorway deciding something else."
from Cirque du Sims: "In this carnival clowns cluster / inside the ringmaster's imagining. / They're woke and tired. Oppose GMOs / & don't know why, eat vegan & have / luxury beef. Love whoever they want / & ghost whoever they don't. Act brand- / new whenever they act. Always."
from PTSD: "Point is, I get invited to parties and never show up. It's not that I don't want to go, but that I stand on the threshold contemplating what I'd do if I stayed home: Write a poem, binge a drama, refuse to call my mother, write a letter to my congressman about some issue I haven't taken the time to understand, stand fifteen goddamn minutes in the doorway deciding something else."
from Cirque du Sims: "In this carnival clowns cluster / inside the ringmaster's imagining. / They're woke and tired. Oppose GMOs / & don't know why, eat vegan & have / luxury beef. Love whoever they want / & ghost whoever they don't. Act brand- / new whenever they act. Always."
May 22, 2023
Was fortunate enough to win this in a giveaway, which was timely because I've been trying to read two poetry collections a month in 2023 with mixed results. So much of the nuance of poetry is lost on me, and while I'll typically find a few lines that move me in a collection, I walk away with less than I hoped.
But I loved this! From the first two pages, I was intrigued by the ideas presented in juxtaposing Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations against a contemporary life where people move with so much more than simple self interest. I found it so readable and engaging in addition to being thought provoking. A wonderful way to spend an afternoon.
But I loved this! From the first two pages, I was intrigued by the ideas presented in juxtaposing Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations against a contemporary life where people move with so much more than simple self interest. I found it so readable and engaging in addition to being thought provoking. A wonderful way to spend an afternoon.
July 1, 2023
A collection of poems that mostly focuses on economics and race, with the author using select texts from social theorist Guy Debord and economist Adam Smith in a number of them, and attempting to converse with them across time. This is done (in my advance copy) in very light grey text which is very difficult and frustrating to read, with the author making some of the text bold and therefore creating her own poem, and half of the conversation. Very few of the poems in this collection really hit for me personally, but I respect what the author was trying to do here.
This review is of an ARE I won in a Goodreads giveaway.
This review is of an ARE I won in a Goodreads giveaway.
February 16, 2023
I could not read this book in one sitting. The ideas and propositions contained in the poems were simply too grand to rush through. The words are of course well chosen and lyrical (as are many great poetry works). However Bread and Circus made me want to learn and understand more about its references and allusions. I can't think of the last time poetry made me thirst for more knowledge while at the same time conveying such strong emotion. Intellect and empathy combine in a profound way, demanding that the reader spend more time thinking, and yes even researching, the poet's worldview.
April 24, 2023
Thanks to NetGalley for this amazing poetry book for National Poetry Month! While I didn't always understand some of the poems, I still loved learning, the tone, and the creative way the author used different forms and methods to create poetry.
Poetry is such an open way to communicate and tell stories. I loved how at the turn of every page I never knew what was awaiting me. If anything, it also inspired me creatively to step out of the box and knew that there is no right or wrong way to write a poem.
I could easily re-read this collection to gain more insight and a better understanding of the topics presented.
Poetry is such an open way to communicate and tell stories. I loved how at the turn of every page I never knew what was awaiting me. If anything, it also inspired me creatively to step out of the box and knew that there is no right or wrong way to write a poem.
I could easily re-read this collection to gain more insight and a better understanding of the topics presented.
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