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Matthea Harvey Biography

Matthea Harvey (born September 3, 1973) is a contemporary American poet, writer and professor. She has published three collections of poetry. The most recent of these, If the Tabloids Are True What Are You?, a collection of poetry and images, was published in 2014. Prior to this, the collection Modern Life (2007) earned her the 2009 Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award and was a finalist for the 2007 National Book Critics Circle Award, and a New York Times Notable Book.

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Matthea Harvey Quotes

I grew up spending time at my grandmother's farm in Germany and she lived a few kilometers away from the border between east and west Germany. It was so strange that roads which used to connect two towns now ended in the middle.

Grandmother, Middle, Time, Two, Used, West Germany

When I get interested in a new topic I teach a class on it. There's a graduate seminar I teach in which the students and I try to expand the terminology we use to talk about poetry as well as expand our notion of what makes a poem - we read source texts on architecture, dance, photography, film and the graphic novel.

Class, Expand, Graphic, Interested, Photography, Trying

Teaching is a great way to keep learning.

Keep, Keep Learning, Learning, Teaching, Way

I have a vague memory of seeing an image of a child in an iron lung and the phrase "sad little breathing machine" coming into my head. The more I thought about it, the more I felt that on certain days - the worse ones - we could all be described as sad little breathing machines.

Breathing, Certain, Children, Image, Memories, Sad

I write poems from dreams pretty frequently. It's limiting to think the poem has to come from a sensical lyric "I" stating things clearly or dramatically. This whole course is trying to say there are millions of ways to approach writing a poem.

Course, Dream, Think, Thinking, Ways, Writing

To be a poet you have to experiment.

Experiment, Experiments, Poet

Recently, while I was in England, I saw a documentary on the BBC about the border between India and Pakistan at Wagah. When the border closes each evening around six o' clock, the soldiers on each side do these amazing high-stepping peacock march-offs (like a dance-off). The displays are almost identical on each side and thousands gather to watch them. Though they're patrolling along their separate borders, what comes across is how similar they are.

Closes, India And Pakistan, Like, Sides, Soldier, Wagah

Having my poems set to music by Eric Moe has completely knocked my socks off.

Eric, Moe, Set, Sock, Socks

I don't think all poems need to be written in conversational language - those are often great poems but there should also be poems of incoherent bewilderment and muddled mystery.

Incoherent, Language, Muddled, Needs, Poems, Thinking

Writing directly from a feeling of anger or sadness is difficult, but if you distract part of your brain with word games, the ignored emotion often tiptoes in.

Brain, Difficult, Games, Sadness, Writing

I suppose it's useful in designating writing that tends to come from personal experience, work that delineates an "I," but it's a loose lasso, one which may rope certain poems by one poet and not others.

Certain, Designating, May, Rope, Writing

I do love the prose poem because it's such a perverse and provocative little box - always asking to be questioned, never giving a straight or definitive answer.

Answers, Asking, Giving, Poem, Questioned

I guess I'm a bit of a projector - my emotions tend to get translated into different, fanciful situations.

Different, Emotion, Guess, Situation, Translated

I read a lot of graphic novels - some of my favorites graphic novelists or artists are Rebecca Kraatz, Gabrielle Bell, Graham Roumieu, Tom Gauld, and Renee French.

Artist, Artists, Bells, Graphic, Novelists, Novels

I'm interested in concrete poems - anything that complicates the line between the written and the visual.

Concrete, Interested, Line, Lines, Visuals, Written

I think all poetry is accessible in a certain sense if you spend enough time with it.

Certain, Enough Time, Sense, Thinking, Time

I don't see much difference between prose poems and flash fiction (I've often taught the latter as the former), but then I also don't see that much difference between art and poetry.

Art, Difference, Differences, Fiction, Former, Taught

When I have my students do erasures, I'm always amazed by the way their voice comes through, whether they're doing an erasure of a romance novel or an encyclopedia. Your sensibility will out.

Romance, Sensibility, Voice, Way

S. E. Smith's I Live in a Hut has a deceptively simple title, considering that the brain in that hut contains galaxies-worth of invention: At night when your soldiers are praying ceaselessly for less rain and more underwear my soldiers make underwear out of rain. These poems seesaw between despair and delight but delight is winning the battle. Smith is a somersaulting tightrope walker of a poet and her poems will make you look at anything and everything with new eyes: For days I tried to rub the new freckle

off my hand until I realized what it was
and began to grant it its sovereignty.

Despair, Everything, Eye, Make, Rain, Simple

If I begin a poem, "I am a donkey," reason kicks in and says, "She is taking on the persona of a donkey. " But if I write, "I have taken so many drugs I can't see my feet," the tendency is to take that as a confession on the part of the poet. Maybe that doesn't matter. I'd almost prefer for it to be the other way round.

Feet, Matter, Prefer, Taken, Tendency, Writing

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