Clay Matthews Is a Damn Bandit
Clay Matthews has published poetry in journals such as the American Poetry Review, Blackbird, Kenyon Review, The Southern Review, and elsewhere. His books are SUPERFECTA (Ghost Road Press), RUNOFF (BlazeVox), PRETTY, ROOSTER, and SHORE (both from Cooper Dillon). His next book, FOUR-WAY LUG WRENCH, is forthcoming from Main Street Rag Books. He currently lives in Elizabethtown, Kentucky, and teaches at Elizabethtown Community & Technical College.
1. What is the best thing that has been said/written about your writing?
This is all ego here, but Michael Meyerhofer wrote the following about some of my poems: “[R]eading his poems fills me with much the same awe that I imagine I’d feel if I chanced upon an 800-pound gorilla deftly folding origami cranes to give to children after carving an ice sculpture and overhauling a tractor engine in record time.” I liked that.
2. What is the worst thing that has been said/written about your writing?
From a workshop at some point: “I don’t know if you’ve earned this ending.”
3. What is the best writing advice you’ve been given?
“. . . you may contribute a verse.”
4. What is the worst writing advice you’ve been given?
That nobody reads poetry.
5. Who writes like a Damn Bandit?
Jan LaPerle (aka Jan Matthews). She has a new collection coming out with Galileo Books (Free State Review), and it’s gonna be a good one. She’s the damndest bandit I know.