"There is a splendid intercourse between the dream and the conscious life in Matthew Guenette's poetry, a constant mental eventfulness that never rests, never surrenders to the old, dried up poeticisms or the stereotypes. A Guenette poem feels ongoing, flung, a creation in the absolute keep of the imagination, a moving revelation where nothing is forbidden or held too precious. Like every good funny poet, Matthew Guenette is to be taken seriously because he is deeply sane, a writer who cleanses us of pretetention and restores our wonder. Sudden Anthem is a brilliantly inventive debut."-Rodney Jones; "Sudden Anthem is a raucous, boisterous, song of praise. Matthew Guenette's outrageous poems romp across the page then make a beeline for your gut, your heart, and your intellect. Guenette is both a nimble purveyor of pop culture and a singer of the most intimate of songs. Sudden Anthem is a deliriously witty collection." -Denise Duhamel

Sudden Anthem

Literature & Fiction

Guenette, Matthew

Poetry

Dream Horse Press

Lee Ann Roripaugh called American Busboy a "wry anti-mythology" where an "anti-hero busboy in an anonymous Clam Shack! tangles with the monotonous delirium of work, the indignities and poor pay of unskilled labor [and] the capricious deus ex machina of mean-spirited middle management." We might call Vasectomania the busboy fast-forwarded 20 years, a little bit wiser and tangling now with the monotonous delirium of parenting, tangling with the indignities of flailing (and often failing) as a father and partner and dealing with his own social-cultural traditions of being raised in a blue-collar town by a single mother whose voice seems to haunt his every move.

Vasectomania (Akron Series in Poetry)

University Of Akron Press

Doom Scroll explores an anxious domesticity. These prose poems hedge toward moments of levity--a Joy Division song, a meal at Denny's, underwear draped over a fence "like a lurid dreamcatcher" --as a pandemic lockdown, busted politics, and other existential dreads loom in the margins.

Doom Scroll: poems (Akron Series in Poetry)

Genre Fiction

American Busboy (Akron Series in Poetry)

In American Busboy, a wry anti-mythology, the anti-hero busboy in an anonymous Clam Shack! tangles with the monotonous delirium of work, the indignities and poor pay of unskilled labor, the capricious deus ex machina of mean-spirited middle management, the zombified consumption of summer tourists, while jostling for the goddess-like attentions of waitresses and hostesses”all battered up in sizzlingly crisp wit and language, and deep-fried in a shiny glaze of surrealism. ”Lee Ann Roripaugh

American Busboy (Akron Series in Poetry (Paperback))

In American Busboy, a wry anti-mythology, the anti-hero busboy in an anonymous Clam Shack! tangles with the monotonous delirium of work, the indignities and poor pay of unskilled labor, the capricious deus ex machina of mean-spirited middle management, the zombified consumption of summer tourists, while jostling for the goddess-like attentions of waitresses and hostesses-all battered up in sizzlingly crisp wit and language, and deep-fried in a shiny glaze of surrealism. -Lee Ann Roripaugh