Run Off

by Clay Matthews

"With Runoff, Clay Matthews solidifies his claim as the only real successor to the narrative, discursive line of Richard Hugo while extending that range to include the kind of hard & sparkling bursts of revelatory truth-won-through-trauma that punctuate the landscape of the best of Larry Levis. There's a howling emptiness that runs through these lines like a river washing through a prairie canyon - but there's a hopeful certainty that where it's going is simply where it's going & there'll be sunshine & clear skies someday. Nate Pritts Clay Matthews' Runoff is ambitious, recursive, and tenacious. Part weather journal, part calendar, part hiding place, Runoff is dense with skee ball and social security cards, spark plugs and scissortail flycatchers. Beverly's Pancake House and Roseanne reruns. A chicken-fried, not-quite-countrified Hamlet-of-sorts, Matthews says, "I got some kind of faith / in some kind / of something," which is tender and optimistic in a world constantly "making up neo- and post- and pre- and new names for itself." Combining the cultural, natural, and metaphysical with ease, here is a voice that ultimately just wants us to "witness the world / you little fools / and love it." Literally letting his days run onto the page, an ordinary man takes us through a year of his (extra?) ordinary life. "And stranger," he says, "you are welcome to it." Welcome we are, indeed. Brandi Homan

130 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2009

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).