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Showing posts from December, 2023

JM in IN

Poets from Indiana, John Matthias Wait, that's John Matthias. I know, you're probably like, why wasn't he the first poet on the list for Indiana? After all, he studied under John Berryman and Yvor Winters. He rubbed elbow patches with Robert Hass and Robert Pinsky. He was at Notre Dame when the MFA started, edited The Notre Dame   Review , and joked around with other amazing writers like Steve Tomasula and Joyelle McSweeney (I suppose, though I haven't heard any stories). And, finally, he's the poet that Robert Archambeau is always talking about, so you know his work is amazing .  He grew up in Ohio and went to The Ohio State U and Stanford, but he's been in South Bend long enough to be claimed as someone with "deep Indiana roots." I'm sure that some of his many books were written along the banks of the St. Joseph River.  One of my favorites is "After Quevedo." Quevedo himself writes insightfully about death, and Matthias' poem picks