We have been honored to publish Matthew Friday‘s poetry. So I am delighted to celebrate this chapbook of his poems—rich in imagery, voice, and a delightful playfulness with language. The poems connect the conscious mind with the heart ( what Mary Oliver says poetry can do).
–Kimberly Hill Campbell, Editor of Oregon English Journal
The Residents challenges me to look into the world and to realize that I’m connected to it. With depth and weight, Friday’s lyrics exalt the ordinary natural world into something I can grapple and hum with. The Residents is a subtle hurricane of poems that illuminate the mysteries and paradoxes we all might experience while getting a haircut or visiting a pumpkin field, wondering why. Friday writes from a place high above, encompassing all that the land has to offer, yet not so high that he misses pumpkin seeds, hummingbirds, and Easter eggs. These poems are offerings my soul gladly accepts.
In the Residents, Friday brings the reader through a glorious expedition of the natural world and that which transcends it. His poems paint lucid images of the natural, while inviting the reader to contemplate the unknown. These poems are a call for awareness in a world that might be too sleepy to wake up. I’ve been a reader of Matthew’s poetry for years, and this collection is his best yet.
–Mike Leyland, School Library Media coordinator, Craven County Schools.
Matthew’s collection of poetry, The Residents, connects the reader with the beauty and power of the natural world, the strangeness of modern life and our alternately sweet or disconnected fellow human beings. He writes with empathy and self-awareness of all he encounters, finding poetic elements in the smallest gestures and actions, as well as the ancient forces of the planet that will outlast us and our temporary dramas. Desperate migrants, unfair privilege, flying birds, rushing water, random hardship, bureaucratic paperwork, a child’s joy in jumping in puddles, unexpected connections between people from different parts of the world—all combine to capture the imagination and stimulate recognition of our shared humanity. Classical literary and mythological references flow through the observations of physics and earth science juxtaposed with human actions, both positive and negative, that in the end are only momentary. Above all, Matthew’s words capture fleeting moments that make life more beautiful in the midst of our current world.
–Vivienne Blake,Librarian, EF Academy New York
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