I had a great time sharing some poems from The Grace of Distance and talking about my writing as part of the LSU Press Remote Author Series.

Thanks so much to everyone who stopped by to listen--and ask some great questions. 

If you missed it live on Facebook, you can still catch the recording here. (You don't need a Facebook account to access this public link.)

Thanks to Adele Kenny for a glowing review of The Grace of Distance in the Spring/Summer issue of Tiferet, which is available as a free PDF. 

"Thorburn's poems are graceful, giving, and filled with the joy of what it means to be gladly and gratefully alive," she writes. "[He] reminds his readers that we are all seekers, searching for the reality that is larger than we are.

You can get the full issue here -- and check out the rest of the review on pages 83-84.

The Petoskey News recently featured a review of The Grace of Distance, among other books that can be "a useful tonic in troubling times." Here's an excerpt:

"Another collection worth noting is Matthew Thorburn’s The Grace of Distance.

"New from Louisiana State University Press, the Lansing-born Thorburn acknowledges his Midwest roots in 'A Poem for My Birthday,' where he points out how he’s 'twice been promoted,' but wonders at what cost, realizing on his 41st birthday, 'Wish I’d stayed home to see my old parents grow older.'

"In 'Watch Over Us,' dedicated to Michigan poet and professor Keith Taylor, Thorburn is riding 'the hot subway home,' when he discovers 'a mosquito poised at the top' of a book’s page. He instinctively readies to 'smush it with (his) thumb,' but asks instead, 'Lord, watch over us all tonight on these journeys we may not even know we’re taking.'”

Here's the full article.

The Grace of Distance is highlighted in The Santa Barbara Independent's list of books to read for National Poetry Month!

"There is much to recommend this well-crafted collection, but it would be worth owning if only for 'This is What the City Smells Like?' surely one of the great olfactory poems ever written: 'Let us sniff / mozzarepas, disco fries, decades of spilled beer / behind the piano at the Vanguard and the ghost / of cigarette smoke in all the bars you can / no longer smoke in.'” 

Here's the full article.

The Grace of Distance has been named a finalist for the 2020 Paterson Poetry Prize, given by the Poetry Center at Passaic County Community College for the best book of poetry published each year.

Congratulations to Jericho Brown, whose book The Tradition won the prize, as well as to the other finalists. I'm proud to be in such good company and grateful to have my work recognized.

​You can read more about the award and the recipients here.

Thanks so much to editor Ron Slate for featuring two of my poems in the latest update of On the Seawall. 

You can read "The Musicians" and "After his Stroke" here.

Thanks so much to Compulsive Reader and reviewer Ketaki Datta for a thoughtful, engaging review of The Grace of Distance. You can read it here.

Thanks so much to editor Ron Slate for taking two poems for On the Seawall. My poems "The Musicians" and "After his Stroke" will appear in an upcoming issue. 

Big thanks the University of Michigan English Department for featuring me in its monthly newsletter. I'm grateful for the chance to spread the news about The Grace of Distance and give a shout out to Keith Taylor, who taught me so much about writing poems and how to live a life in poetry.

​Check it out here.

I'm excited to be part of an upcoming anthology of poems about Cape Cod. From the Farther Shore: Discovering Cape Cod and the Islands through Poetry will be published in 2020 by Bass River Press.

​Thanks to the editors for including my poem, "Three Sisters," about three retired lighthouses in Nauset.