John Matthias is an American poet. He was born in Columbus, Ohio

Columbus, Ohio

Columbus is the capital of and the largest city in the U.S. state of Ohio. The broader metropolitan area encompasses several counties and is the third largest in Ohio behind those of Cleveland and Cincinnati. Columbus is the third largest city in the American Midwest, and the fifteenth largest city...

, in 1941 and attended the Ohio State University

Ohio State University

The Ohio State University, commonly referred to as Ohio State, is a public research university located in Columbus, Ohio. It was originally founded in 1870 as a land-grant university and is currently the third largest university campus in the United States...

 and Stanford University

Stanford University

The Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University or Stanford, is a private research university on an campus located near Palo Alto, California. It is situated in the northwestern Santa Clara Valley on the San Francisco Peninsula, approximately northwest of San...

. At Stanford he studied under the poet and critic Yvor Winters

Yvor Winters

Arthur Yvor Winters was an American poet and literary critic.-As modernist:Winters's early poetry, which appeared in small avant-garde magazines alongside work by writers like James Joyce and Gertrude Stein, was written in the modernist idiom, and was heavily influenced both by Native American...

, but did not conform to Winters' stringent anti-modernist position. In fact, Matthias became deeply interested in modernism, especially English modernism, which he came to know well during many years of residence in England. His peers at Stanford included two future poets laureate of the United States, Robert Hass

Robert Hass

Robert L. Hass is an American poet. He served as Poet Laureate of the United States from 1995 to 1997. He was awarded the 2007 National Book Award and the 2008 Pulitzer Prize for Time and Materials.-Life:...

 and Robert Pinsky

Robert Pinsky

Robert Pinsky is an American poet, essayist, literary critic, and translator. From 1997 to 2000, he served as Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress. Pinsky is the author of nineteen books, most of which are collections of his own poetry...

, as well as the poets Ken Fields, James McMichael, and John Peck.

Influences include John Berryman

John Berryman

John Allyn Berryman was an American poet and scholar, born in McAlester, Oklahoma. He was a major figure in American poetry in the second half of the 20th century and was considered a key figure in the Confessional school of poetry...

, Ezra Pound

Ezra Pound

Ezra Weston Loomis Pound was an American expatriate poet and critic and a major figure in the early modernist movement in poetry...

, and perhaps most importantly, the Anglo-Welsh poet David Jones, on whose work Matthias has edited two books.

Matthias' books include: Bucyrus, (1970); Turns (1975); Crossing (1979); Northern Summer (1984); A Gathering of Ways (1991); Beltane at Aphelion (1995); Swimming at Midnight (1995); Pages (2000); "Working Progress, Working Title" (2002); and New Selected Poems (2004) and Kedging (2007).

In 2004 an issue of Samizdat (poetry magazine)

Samizdat (poetry magazine)

Samizdat was an international poetry magazine published in Chicago from 1998 until 2004 and edited by the poet Robert Archambeau. It was noted for its unusual format, being printed on large newsprint pages. Contributors included Adam Zagajewski as well as Clayton Eshleman, Pierre Joris, Jerome...

 was devoted to commentary on his work.

Major scholarly works on Matthias' poetry include the books Word Play Place: Essays on the Poetry of John Matthias (1998) edited by Robert Archambeau

Robert Archambeau

For the poet and critic, see Robert Archambeau Robert Archambeau is a Canadian ceramic artist. Born in Toledo, Ohio, United States in 1933, he immigrated to Canada in 1968. His work, heavily influenced by Japanese ceramics, has been exhibited internationally and is held in many major public and...

 and The Salt Companion to John Matthias (2011) edited by Joe Francis Doerr.

Matthias excels in the writing of longer poems, and works in a new version of the modernist idiom. He has also translated the work of several Swedish poets, including Jesper Svenbro

Jesper Svenbro

Jesper Svenbro is a Swedish poet, classical philologist, and member of the Swedish Academy.Svenbro was educated at Lund University, where he was awarded a Ph.D. in 1976 for his dissertation La parole et le marbre: aux origines de la poétique grecque, on the origin of ancient Greek poetics...

, and the Serbian epic poem The Battle of Kosovo.

External links

• http://www.saltpublishing.com/shop/Matthias_John.php John Matthias author page at Salt Publishing