Satellite

by Matthew Rohrer

In this follow-up collection to the National Poetry Series winner A Hummock in the Malookas , Rohrer’s poems play against convention, finding dark, surreal underpinnings in the seemingly innocent objects and experiences of everyday life. Direct, humorous and disquieting, Satellite further develops the unique sensibility of an important young poet.

Genres: Poetry

86 pages, Paperback

First published April 1, 2001

About the author

Matthew Rohrer is the author of Destroyer and Preserver (forthcoming from Wave Books in 2011), A Plate of Chicken (Ugly Duckling Presse, 2009), Rise Up (Wave Books, 2007) and A Green Light (Verse Press, 2004), which was shortlisted for the 2005 Griffin Poetry Prize. He is also the author of Satellite (Verse Press, 2001), and co-author, with Joshua Beckman, of Nice Hat. Thanks. (Verse Press, 2002), and the audio CD Adventures While Preaching the Gospel of Beauty. He has appeared on NPR's "All Things Considered" and "The Next Big Thing." His first book, A Hummock in the Malookas was selected for the National Poetry Series by Mary Oliver in 1994. He lives in Brooklyn, New York, and teaches in the undergraduate writing program at NYU.

For more information on this author, go to:
http://www.wavepoetry.com/authors/32-...

Reviews

[Dustin · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'll never forget the time Matt Rohrer drove me and some of our friends up through Central California to Chico, at the tip of the Sacramento Valley, in the shadow of the Sierra Nevadas. We were there for a reading. It was a one day trip, and Matt Rohrer loaded us all in his van hella early and ate hella donuts and was kind enough to sit through the 49er game for me when we got to Chico. The Niners were terrible against the New York Giants; I think the long flight to the East Coast probably had something to do with their performance. Me and Matt Rohrer talked about that, about how we were watching our hometown team but they were in an alien place all the way across the country, how odd and discordant it was.

On the way home Matt Rohrer, who I originally knew as a Vegan, declared that he wasn't hungry but he wanted to eat some junk food. We pulled into lot that had both a KFC and a Jack in the Box, and Matt Rohrer went to the KFC and got six pieces of fried chicken and washed them down with a Jack in the Box shake. I had tacos. We never regretted anything.

[Madeline · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'm so happy I was forced to discover this. Satellite was assigned reading for a poetry writing class I took my first term of college. I read most of it on a rainy October bus ride home and was astounded by Rohrer's simplistic and endearing poems about the bizarre wonderfulness of everyday experiences.

Five years later, I still find myself returning to this book again and again. Nobody can write a love poem like Rohrer.

"My lover cradled a camera
to her weakened eyes,
to take a picture of where the night just was.
Common decency forebade me
from expressing my love
down her shirt under the mothering eye
of a town's watertower.
The tower said 'Smile America'
and 'I plugged Heather Griggs.'"

[Michael Oliver · Rating 5 out of 5]

I've Rohrer's poems over and over again. He has an impressive in your face style, but keeps it silly and fun. I've sang his poems while playing guitar. I've quoted his ideas to help explain my points. I recommend The Amaranth, a brilliant poem about young love.

[Megan · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a book that excited me when it was first published, and one that continues to excite me each time I return to it, come upon a moment in life that reminds me of it, or hand it off to a friend. It is modern poetry that just seems to fit.

[Ron Mohring · Rating 3 out of 5]

I want to give this 3.5 stars. Some days, it's a four. Once I re-read it and couldn't understand what I saw in it. Three months later, I was re-convinced that it was genius. Above all, I'm won over by his voice.

[J.R. · Rating 4 out of 5]

A surreal waking dream. The Riot sonnets are quite imaginative with the turn coming at odd places. Best poem: Stunt (with a close second: The Robotroid Girlfriend).

[C.S. Carrier · Rating 5 out of 5]

There's a robotroid girlfriend and an amaranth. Enough said.