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Matthew Zapruder Biography

Matthew Zapruder

Matthew Zapruder (1967) is an American poet, editor, translator, and professor.

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Matthew Zapruder Quotes

Of course I was drawn to the sun bears, they're fascinating. But so are tigers and lots of other animals at the zoo. Probably a big part of the reason I felt so connected to them was because of their name: SUN BEAR.

Animal, Felt, Name, Names, Reason, Zoos

Mahmoud Darwish wrote that "extreme clarity is a mystery. " That sounds right to me. I don't want anyone hunting for anything ancillary to the true mystery. If that means risking being thought of as glib or dull or banal or stupid or whatever, I guess that will just have to be the way it is.

Darwish, Hunting, Mean, Risking, Stupid, Thought

When I saw the sun bears at the Oakland Zoo, I immediately was drawn to them. Not to be ornery, but regarding what you said about the speaker identifying with the bear: I'm not sure it's exactly right to say that the speaker feels that the bear must share his sadness, or whatever else he is feeling. That would be classic pathetic fallacy, which is certainly generative for poetry, but here the speaker appears actually to be rejecting that idea.

Identifying, Oakland, Sadness, Saw, Zoos

I think it is our job as poets to refuse the terms that society so often sets for usefulness. That, for instance, is what Dickinson did: she refused to be a wife, a homemaker, a standard member of her community. She knew she had to in order to have the space and time to write her poems. Thank god she said no!

Instance, Terms, Thank, Thinking, Wife, Writing

It may very well be that we have entered another time when most poets will feel compelled to use poetry to stop things from happening. Yet I believe that even if poetry did not do this, it would be vital to our survival.

Believe, Entered, I Believe, Poets, Survival, Time

The speaker tentatively reaches out with that feeling and realizes that it's kind of absurd, or at least a dangerous consolation, which is what I think is discovered as that longish sentence at the end of the poem comes to its conclusion. But here I am interpreting my own poem, which is kind of like making out with one's own high school yearbook photo.

Absurd, Discovered, High, School, Thinking, Yearbook

So for whatever reason those short lines just felt right to me, in my physical self. They were right for the movement of the poems. Some poems in the book have longer lines.

Book, Self, Movement, Physical, Reason

It's just interesting to me that the physical enactment of that mind moving has gradually changed for you in the last few years. It made me wonder if the change was deliberate in any sense, or procedural, like when A. R. Ammons stuck an adding machine roll into his typewriter to squeeze his verses into shorter lines.

Lines, Moving, Roll, Typewriter, Typewriters, Years

I'm more than a little suspicious of humor in poems, because I think it can at times be a way of getting a reaction out of a reader, or an audience, that is something closer to relief: i. e. , thank god this isn't poetry, but stand-up comedy. Some poets are really funny, but more often poets are fourth rate stand up comics at best. But they benefit from the sheer relief of the audience.

Closer, Poems, Poets, Relief, Thank God, Thinking

The question does arise if how and why to write poetry in this time. It feels both completely essential and also quite difficult. But that's how writing poetry has felt to me my whole life. Everything seems to have just gotten immensely more mortal and tragic and scary, which makes it hard to concentrate, but also, if harnessed, can provide immense energy for making poems.

Energy, Poems, Scary, Time, Tragic, Writing

Miroslav Holub seems to expect his readers to act like scientists, who are curious in every direction, take nothing for granted, and are willing to accept any truth, however unexpected.

Act, Granted, Like, Nothing, Scientist, Unexpected

I wanted to write not exclusively for (or against) poets or scholars, though many of them are people, too! But that was not my primary audience. It was that person you like who tells you they don't get poetry, and you think to yourself, aw man, what can I do for this good person?

Man, Men, Primary, Tells, Thinking, Writing

All my closest friends came to me through poetry. My wife, too! Other than my family, poetry is the gravitational force of my life.

Closest, Gravitational, My Family, My Wife, Poetry, Wife

That being said, some of my favorite poets are extremely funny. The aforementioned Matt Rohrer, for instance. Mary Ruefle. James Tate might be the best example of someone who is systematically misread because he can be hilarious. In his poems, as in all great funny poems, the humor is one very appealing version of the surprise and associative movement that is at the heart of all poetry.

Example, Extremely, Heart, Hilarious, Matt, Movement

That is a horrible thing in a way, but it is the one thing poets can bring back to experience, this intense focus on language, which activates words as a portal back into experience. It's a mysterious process that's very hard to articulate, because it's focused entirely on the material of language in a way, but in the interests not just of language itself whatever that would mean - that's the mistake, by the way, that so many so-called "experimental" poets make - but in service to human experience.

Mistake, Mean, Focus, Entirely, Back

I've noticed that there can be a visceral reaction to strong statements about poetry, as if anyone who has an opinion and expresses it is shutting people down. It's funny to see that expressed, and then to go back and read poetic statements by the great poets of the past: they are full of a passionate conviction! It is clearly possible to express strong feelings about poetry while also defending the absolute right of myriad approaches.

Absolute, Conviction, Full, Past, People, Strong

That name, SUN BEAR, just sounds like an ideogram to me. Super resonant. By the way, this all might be related to Tomaž Šalamun's famous line, "Every true poet is a monster. " Or why Richard Hugo writes that the imagination is a cynic. T

Hugo, Imagination, Names, Poet, Super, Writing

For me, form is something I locate in the process of writing the poems. What I mean is, I start scribbling, and then try to form the poem - on a typewriter or on my computer - and, by trial and error, try to find the right shape. I just try to keep forming the poem in different ways until it feels right to me.

Writing, Mean, Errors, Ways, Right

I would like to try to write poetry that would do everything I wanted poems to do, but also be readable by any person. I didn't know if this was possible, but I suddenly knew, in that few-times-in-a-lifetime sort of way, that this would be my life's search.

Poetry, Possible, Readable, Search, Trying, Writing

Music and songs have always been a constant part of my life, and still are. My brother Michael, who is a songwriter and composer, is the one who most fully inherited the musical legacy of our family, but I got some part of it - mostly the feel.

Song, Brother, Musical, Fully, Michael, Songwriter

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