Expansive, exuberant, and relentlessly eclectic, Matthew James Babcock’s debut essay collection, Heterodoxologies, mixes the long view with the quick glance to examine every abstruse angle of a life lived in the Rocky Mountain Northwest. Those pieces long enough to change a life—ruminations on breakdancing and bullying, body dysmorphic disorder and virginity—sit cheek-by-jowl with breezy snapshots on assassins, roller rinks, and bowling alleys—dashes of nonfiction short enough to read while you wait for the traffic light to change. Even if you’ve never had an imagined conversation with Jane Austen, or been awakened from a dream visit to a fictional town in Indiana, if you’ve never been smitten with scabies or watched your brother’s garage band make it most of the way out of the garage, Heterodoxologies reminds us that the flipside of our expectations is exactly what we need.

Heterodoxologies

Literature & Fiction

Babcock, Matthew James

Essays & Correspondence

Educe Press

Matthew J. Babcock's Private Fire: Robert Francis's Ecopoetry and Prose is an examination of the life and work of one of America's most intriguing but tragically obscure writers. Babcock uses his own personal relationship Robert Francis's work, which emphasizes conservation and connectedness to our natural surroundings, to illuminate both overtones and nuances that are undoubtedly useful to those interested in poetry and ecology. Babcock begins with a brief biographical section intended to set the tone for readers previously unfamiliar with Robert Francis and then continues into an analysis of the influence of Emily Dickinson and Robert Frost on Francis's work. Starting in Chapter Three, Private Fire shifts into the realm of literary analysis and discusses various angles of Francis's work, from representations of gender and sexual identity; prose contributions, both fiction and non-fiction; religion and politics; to themes of conservation, place-making, experimental poetic styles, and asceticism, finishing with a discussion of Francis's only long narrative poem, "Valhalla." This poem joins other prophetic works in musing upon environmental apocalypticism. Matthew J. Babcock finishes this detailed and thoughtful volume with concluding meditations that situate Robert Francis with his contemporaries, helping readers to locate him historically and contextually amongst other 20th century writers. By using biography and literary theory as the lens through which one interprets Francis's work, Private Fire: Robert Francis's Ecopoetry and Prose successfully navigates the literary and cultural environment surrounding a poet who himself was so connected with the world around him.

Private Fire: Robert Francis's Ecopoetry and Prose

Religion & Spirituality

University of Delaware Press

Strange Terrain treats the poetry of memory as Western landscape, with marvelous specificity; each detail contrives to be the perfect descriptor for the experience. The range of forms is itself a highly varied geography. Babcock's poems are like hearing a good friend recount an engaging series of anecdotes from a well-spent life.

Strange Terrain

Poetry

MadHat, Inc.

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