Moon Grammar (Hardcover)

Matthew Porto

ISBN 10: 1639821570 / ISBN 13: 9781639821570

Published by Slant Books, 2024

Hardcover. In the opening poem of Matthew Porto's dazzling debut collection, we hear the voice of the recurring angel figure for the first time, commanding us to "Get used to the light." That light-blinding, mysterious, unsettling, but occasionally illuminating-shows up again and again in Porto's taut, elegant poems. As he writes in another poem: "Some light, it's true, makes it to us, but always / refractory, errant, struggling to deign downward." The occasions for these poems range from encounters with ancient biblical and mythological tropes to fresh translations of elegiac Anglo-Saxon verse to sojourns from Texas to Taiwan and Vermont to Venice. Holding everything together-the themes of love and responsibility, memory and forgetfulness, loss and hope-is the grammar of the moon, ever-changing, yet ever-present. Here is a fully mature poetic voice, one which former U.S. Poet Laureate Robert Pinsky rightly hails as "ingeniously alert, compelling, and unpredictable." The poems in Matthew Porto's debut collection, Moon Grammar, range from encounters with ancient biblical and mythological tropes to fresh translations of elegiac Anglo-Saxon verse to sojourns from Vermont to Venice. Shipping may be from our UK warehouse or from our Australian or US warehouses, depending on stock availability. Seller Inventory # 9781639821570

Synopsis:

In the opening poem of Matthew Porto's dazzling debut collection, we hear the voice of the recurring angel figure for the first time, commanding us to "Get used to the light." That light-blinding, mysterious, unsettling, but occasionally illuminating-shows up again and again in Porto's taut, elegant poems. As he writes in another poem: "Some light, it's true, makes it to us, but always / refractory, errant, struggling to deign downward." 

 

The occasions for these poems range from encounters with ancient biblical and mythological tropes to fresh translations of elegiac Anglo-Saxon verse to sojourns from Texas to Taiwan and Vermont to Venice.

 

Holding everything together-the themes of love and responsibility, memory and forgetfulness, loss and hope-is the grammar of the moon, ever-changing, yet ever-present. Here is a fully mature poetic voice, one which former U.S. Poet Laureate Robert Pinsky rightly hails as "ingeniously alert, compelling, and unpredictable."  

About the Author: Matthew Porto is an Italian-American poet from Long Island, NY. He holds a PhD in English from Texas Tech University and an MFA in poetry from Boston University. His first collection, Moon Grammar, appeared with Slant Books in 2024. He lives in Boston, MA, where he a professor of English at Berklee College of Music.

Bibliographic Details

Title: Moon Grammar (Hardcover)
Publisher: Slant Books
Publication Date: 2024
Binding: Hardcover
Condition: new