https://www.matthewjspireng.com/home daily 1.0 2022-05-14 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5ebd9520cd12b30fdc2de153/1589899702546-YQCTDCU0DC79QJNVBFLD/good-work-matthew-spireng.png Home - Good Work Winner of 2019 Sinclair Poetry Prize published by Evening Street Press “One source of the richness in this book is that you have to wait for each poem to tell you, in a given case, which side of the question might be better. It depends on the feeling, which Spireng gets profoundly right time after time.” —Henry Taylor https://www.matthewjspireng.com/about daily 0.75 2021-02-27 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5ebd9520cd12b30fdc2de153/1591907125378-CT7EJMWEZHEQQOALSSQI/matthew-spireng-poet-writer.jpg About - Matthew J. Spireng is a widely published, award-winning poet whose passion is to awaken people to the enjoyment poetry can bring to their lives. His poetry is rich and accessible, thought-provoking and understandable, and, as R.H.W. Dillard says of Spireng’s latest book Good Work, “his poems ─ with their honesty, their good humor, their unruffled craft, their interior tension ─ bring, one by one, page by page, to each reader a new dawning of perception.” Photo ©Steve Antonelli https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5ebd9520cd12b30fdc2de153/1591642065734-FI2JOBQOQHGKMY5QI3LC/Untitled-3.png About https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5ebd9520cd12b30fdc2de153/1591641984157-W2DN5QPPL9ETMTO0SJMA/goodword-nogb.png About https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5ebd9520cd12b30fdc2de153/1591642027735-SH2HMMRX8PFK0KVUPFL3/Untitled-2.png About https://www.matthewjspireng.com/contact daily 0.75 2020-09-09 https://www.matthewjspireng.com/full-length-books daily 0.75 2021-02-03 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5ebd9520cd12b30fdc2de153/1591636298326-1J4RKY4O7T9BFOXYX2NU/what-focus-is.png Full-Length - What Focus Is Tobias Keene, D.D.S. Hailing from Richmond, Virginia, Dr. Tobias Keene brings a bit of unabashed Southern hospitality to all his patients. He moved to Washington, D.C. over thirty years ago as a freshman at Ivy College. Right after graduation, he attended World University’s School of Dentistry. Before opening Keene Dental in 1994, he worked for free clinics and some of the finest practices in the District. He is part of the 123 Dental Association and stays up-to-date on the latest dental discoveries. When not striving to keep his patients happy and healthy, he’s enjoys hiking with his family in Rock Creek Park. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5ebd9520cd12b30fdc2de153/1591636277443-VQQRK94SWOYO31B8W915/good-work-matthew-spireng.png Full-Length - Good Work Winner of 2019 Sinclair Poetry Prize Evening Street Press “For many years, in many poems, Matthew Spireng has watched the world and himself with close and patient attention. In poems arising from farming, or logging, or writing and reading, there are strong portrayals of failure and success, danger and safety, or doubt and certainty. One source of the richness in this book is that you have to wait for each poem to tell you, in a given case, which side of the question might be better. It depends on the feeling, which Spireng gets profoundly right time after time.” —Henry S. Taylor, Pulitzer Prize for Poetry winner, 1986 Good Work Good work, I thought today, is the muse, the fount of creation, the spark that lights the wick that lights the way to writing a poem. I was raking stones with a shovel along the driveway to gather them in piles and shovel them up to place them in the wheelbarrow to dump in the potholes winter and the spring thaw had conspired to create. There was such a profusion the eight-hundred feet from town road to garage had to be driven like a slalom course, though with no chance of success. The ping of the pebbles in the metal wheelbarrow punctuated the work. A neighbor honked and waved. It was too much to do in the time at hand and, though I’d hoped to get a third of the work done, I could only come close. But I’d done enough to see that the stones thrown to the side of the drive by the plow would nowhere near fill all of the potholes that gaped. Still, as I’d thought, it was good work, better than idleness, better than napping, better than nothing at all. I could see what I’d accomplished, and when I drove out I could feel good work still to be done. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5ebd9520cd12b30fdc2de153/1591636323282-475ZVS2PIYVYJBK7DXB5/out-of-body-matthew-spireng.png Full-Length - Out of Body Winner of 2004 Bluestem Poetry Award Bluestem Press at Emporia State University “Gravity that the knowledge of death brings to life weights Out of Body. Grounded in the flesh, this rigorous poetry is an uncompromising encounter with reality. Yet, each poem is underpinned with tenderness and seeks a grace that approaches the sacramental. Posited in a somber awareness that the living need hope even where there is none, poem after poem confronts suffering in order to arouse compassion for those in the moment when breath fails. One particularly memorable poem is about a killdeer whose nest has been destroyed by a tractor. The speaker follows the bird, ‘giving her hope, false as it is, her birdwork is right for this world.’ With persistent care for the subject, whether a cow that died in a breech birth or one of the 1200 people lost in the 1871 Peshtigo fire. Matthew Spireng honors each being by depicting its end. In preserving the sanctity of life no matter how small, poems in Out of Body teach the heart to persevere, to cherish the surprising twists, the joy to be found in the journey.” — Vivian Shipley, Bluestem Contest Judge 2004 Killdeer after a Late Planting in Corn She cries and cries, trying to lead me away from the nest she can no longer find the disk's destroyed, the tractor's run over, her eggs or young turned under as she feigned a hurt and cried to that roar in vain to draw it away as if it were a predator stalking its prey. At first I follow because my goal's her way—the end of the drive and the road to be walked— but then as she flies in another direction and lands, crying and crying, I turn and follow just her, giving her hope, false as it is, her birdwork is right for this world. https://www.matthewjspireng.com/chapbooks daily 0.75 2020-06-24 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5ebd9520cd12b30fdc2de153/1591638664789-MQSOYOCFTQEPMQE4K694/1591637892+copy.png Chapbooks - Encounters Finishing Line Press "If you would like to borrow the eyes of a poet to encounter the creatures and events of nature, see them in a clear and unusual light, then these are the poems for you. I'm tempted to call them 'Thoreauvian,' and that's what they are, but they are also 'Bashovian,' glimpses into the state of the world." —Lewis Turco May Night Already a firefly flashes high in the willow, the day so warm it felt like June coming on. But the humidity was low, and tonight the air became chill beneath a clear and cloudless sky. Now a lone firefly awakened by the false summer sun climbs feebly high in the willow answering the clamor of stars. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5ebd9520cd12b30fdc2de153/1591905791456-TZYDCY1BP068S89RAEVW/young-farmer-spireng.png Chapbooks - Young Farmer Finishing Line Press “Like the mythical figure of the giant Antaeus, Matthew Spireng’s poems get their strength from having at least one foot on a specific patch of ground. In Young Farmer, memory of having to nurse collapsing bodies in harsh, rural America is less than a generation away. Spireng does not crop the ragged edge off of truth, but restores it . . . .” —Vivian Shipley Young Farmer Waits for Rain Year before he’d have given most anything for days like this: blue sky, few clouds, calm or a gentle breeze. Instead it rained almost daily for a month so fields turned to a series of ponds, seeds rotted in the ground, and when finally the rain let up, the fields were so wet it was weeks before they could be tilled again. And this year: last year’s wish for dry days granted. No rain for weeks so the soil was dust, the first sprouts of corn withered and dead, no sense in replanting until rain came again. All he could do was wait. Last year for this. This year for rain that was last year’s curse. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5ebd9520cd12b30fdc2de153/1591638931266-IRVDV7XAF6X52LDFEZ1D/inspiration-point.png Chapbooks - Inspiration Point Tobias Keene, D.D.S. Hailing from Richmond, Virginia, Dr. Tobias Keene brings a bit of unabashed Southern hospitality to all his patients. He moved to Washington, D.C. over thirty years ago as a freshman at Ivy College. Right after graduation, he attended World University’s School of Dentistry. Before opening Keene Dental in 1994, he worked for free clinics and some of the finest practices in the District. He is part of the 123 Dental Association and stays up-to-date on the latest dental discoveries. When not striving to keep his patients happy and healthy, he’s enjoys hiking with his family in Rock Creek Park. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5ebd9520cd12b30fdc2de153/1591639250394-93E2MYUJ9TSKW7N8H0SK/just-this-spireng.png Chapbooks - Just this https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5ebd9520cd12b30fdc2de153/1591639295904-ZNOLF48R6IRIZIL5KFYJ/1591638164+copy.png Chapbooks