I'm excited to have two new poems forthcoming in a future issue of The Southern Review. "At Chuang Yen Monastery" (a prose poem) and "Late Morning" are from a new book manuscript I've been working on--a book of elegies.

Thanks so much to editors Elaine Sexton, Joan Cappello and Jennifer Stewart Miller for including a poem of mine in the new issue of 2 Horatio. "Aunt Elizabeth and Aunt Eileen" is one of the small handful of poems I've written in this strange year.

I'm thrilled it's found a good home, and in such good company: check out the complete issue for new work by Jennifer Franklin, Aaron Smith, Peter Covino, Pamela Hart, Martha Rhodes, Ron Slate,
Jason Schneiderman, David Groff, Michael H. Broder and many more.

Read 2 Horatio here.
 

Very excited to report two poems from my new manuscript will be published in Prairie Schooner.

​"A Photography of Father" and "A Photograph of Mother" will appear in the upcoming winter issue. 

Some good news today: my poem, "Heaney's Voice," will appear in Volume XXII of the Valparaiso Poetry Review. Thanks so much to editor Edward Byrne for giving this poem a good home.

You can visit the journal online here.

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.