#PoetryMonth Why Poetry (with Matthew Zapruder)
In honour of Ntional #PoetryMonth Matthew Zapruder is a poet, editor at large for Wave Books, guitarist in the rock band The Figments, and associate professor in the Saint Mary’s College of California MFA Program in Creative Writing. His recent book, Why Poetry is a call to reignite our love affair with poetry. He argues that the way we have been educated has stopped us from being able to enjoy poetry. Our misconceptions prevents us from engaging with poems leading us to feel confused and incapable of connecting to the work.
Zapruder has written several collections of poetry and his poems are represented in several anthologies. Adaptations of Zapruder's poetry have been performed at Carnegie Hall, he collaborated with painter Chris Uphues on For You in Full Bloom (2009), and co-translated, with historian Radu Ioanid, Eugen Jebeleanu’s collection Secret Weapon: Selected Late Poems (2008). He has received a Guggenheim Fellowship, a Lannan Foundation Residency Fellowship, the William Carlos Williams Award from the Poetry Society of America, and the May Sarton Prize from the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
Matthew Zapruder discusses poetry and his book with Jacke Wilson on The History of Literature.
April Snow - Matthew Zapruder
Today in El Paso all the planes are asleep on the runway. The world is in a delay. All the political consultants drinking whiskey keep their heads down, lifting them only to look at the beautiful scarred waitress who wears typewriter keys as a necklace. They jingle when she brings them drinks. Outside the giant plate glass windows the planes are completely covered in snow, it piles up on the wings. I feel like a mountain of cell phone chargers. Each of the various faiths of our various fathers keeps us only partly protected. I don’t want to talk on the phone to an angel. At night before I go to sleep I am already dreaming. Of coffee, of ancient generals, of the faces of statues each of which has the eternal expression of one of my feelings. I examine my feelings without feeling anything. I ride my blue bike on the edge of the desert. I am president of this glass of water.
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