A 1994 National Poetry Series-winning collection of poems intense with visual imagery infuses the inanimate with emotion, people with reality beyond the expected, and language with an evocative preciseness

A Hummock in the Malookas: Poems (The National Poetry Series)

Literature & Fiction

Rohrer, Matthew

Poetry

W.W. Norton & Co., Inc.

Exploring quirky perspectives on truth, a critically acclaimed collection of poetry explores a landscape of skewed realities in which the impossible becomes familiar. Winner of the 1994 National Poetry Series.A Publishers Weekly Best Book of the Year; winner of the 1994 National Poetry Series. In the singular landscape of Matthew Rohrer's first book of poems, the weather, the food, even the household appliances come to life. "A few pages into this book," says the Minneapolis City Pages, "and you'll start glancing sideways at the terrain, which . . . looks suddenly vital." These quirky poems entertain and delicately point to truth. Rohrer illuminates a land of skewed realities where the impossible seems familiar, the sacher torte is afraid to be eaten, and it's always dusk in the forest.

Hummock in the Malookas: Poems (National Poetry Series Books (Paperback))

W.W.Norton&Company

In this follow-up collection to the National Poetry Series winner A Hummock in the Malookas, Rohrer’s poems play against convention, finding dark, surreal underpinnings in the seemingly innocent objects and experiences of everyday life. Direct, humorous and disquieting, Satellite further develops the unique sensibility of an important young poet.

Satellite

United States

Wave Books

Nice Hat. Thanks. is an innovative book based on the recorded improvised poetic collaborations between two award-winning poets, Joshua Beckman and Matthew Rohrer. Nice Hat. Thanks. is a collection of transcriptions of these collaborations, with poems ranging from a few words to several pages.

Nice Hat. Thanks.

Beckman, Joshua

Verse Press

Matthew Rohrer’s simple, hilarious, generous and strangely disquieting poems conjure versions of the most familiar aspects of our lives—friendship, marriage, childhood, work—into which intrude incongruous, peculiar, fantastical, yet somehow totally recognizable elements. Over and over these poems leave us convinced that we’ve learned something very important and mysterious, yet we can’t say exactly what.

A Green Light

After their Fall 2002 whirlwind tour supporting their book of collaborative poems, Nice Hat. Thanks, these acclaimed poets return with a collection of the finest new poems created live as they rambled high and low. Covering such topics as hillbillies, baseball, capitalism, paradise, fruit, spy satellites, and more, the CD is an uproarious and continually surprising audio record of two vivid imaginations working overtime for audiences in no less than 19 states.

Adventures While Preaching the Gospel of Beauty

Dramas & Plays

Equal parts punk rock and pastoral, [Rohrer has] a voice that seems unearthly in its ability to be detached and simultaneously tender.”American Poet
Approaching pleasure and terror with the same searching and determined curiosity, Rise Up traverses political, natural, and domestic landscapes with gentle agility. Beautifully crafted surfaces give way to sincere depth.
 Matthew Rohrer is the author of A Green Light (2004, shortlisted for the Griffin Prize), Satellite, and A Hummock in the Malookas. He has appeared on NPR’s All Things Considered and The Next Big Thing.

Rise Up

"Rohrer has an enchanting willingness to look outward, a willingness not to grasp the world using old means which have failed us, even if no new means present themselves ready-made."—Judges' citation, the 2005 International Griffin Poetry Prize
Griffin Poetry Prize finalist Matthew Rohrer illuminates the modern plight: trying to figure out how to be a thoughtful citizen, parent, and person as the landscape of terror and history worms its way into our everyday existence. Unnervingly humorous, casual, and tender, Rohrer's poems help us investigate our lives as he investigates his—openly and with a generous presence.
From "Dull Affairs":
How am I to concentrate on the heavy and dull affairs of state with the sound of a baby having a dream in the other room 
Matthew Rohrer is the author of five previous books of poetry, including A Plate of Chicken, Rise Up, Satellite, and A Green Light, which was shortlisted for the 2005 Griffin Poetry Prize. He is also co-author of Nice Hat. Thanks. with Joshua Beckman, with whom he has participated in performances at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City and the Henry Art Gallery in Seattle. He received the Pushcart Prize and his first book, A Hummock in the Malookas, was selected for the National Poetry Series by Mary Oliver. He lives in Brooklyn, New York, and teaches at New York University.

Destroyer and Preserver

"Rohrer's frequently beautiful, brief poems are rooted in specific images that initially seem unrelated—but which ultimately form a unity as meditations on how the ordinary distractions of everyday life can be seen as the source for almost everything important in life."—Ken Tucker, Entertainment WeeklyThe poems in Matthew Rohrer's seventh poetry collection are generated by, and embrace, friendships with the living, the dead, and the inanimate. Friends, family, and the urban peoplescape are gathered together in these poems, with more and more poetic voices joining in, and ending with poems written "in collaboration" with Kobayashi Issa, Yosa Buson, Matsuo Basho, and Hafiz.THERE IS ABSOLUTELY NOTHING LONELIERThere is absolutely nothing lonelierthan the little Mars rovernever shutting down, digging uprocks, so far away from Bond Streetin a light rain. I wonderif he makes little beeps? If sohe is lonelier still. He fires a laserinto the dust. He coughs. A shinything in the sand turns out to be his.Matthew Rohrer has received the Hopwood Award for poetry, a Pushcart Prize, was selected as a National Poetry Series winner by Mary Oliver, and was shortlisted for the Griffin International Poetry Prize. He is the co-author, with Joshua Beckman, of Nice Hat. Thanks., and the audio CD Adventures While Preaching the Gospel of Beauty. He has appeared on NPR's All Things Considered and The Next Big Thing. He lives in Brooklyn, New York, and teaches at NYU.

Surrounded by Friends

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Rohrer, Matthew. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Rohrer, Matthew

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Rohrer, Matthew. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

A Hummock in the Malookas: Poems (The National Poetry Series)

Hummock in the Malookas: Poems (National Poetry Series Books (Paperback))

Satellite

Nice Hat. Thanks.

A Green Light

Adventures While Preaching the Gospel of Beauty

Rise Up

Rise Up

Destroyer and Preserver

Surrounded by Friends