Poetry. Henriksen opens ORDINARY SUN by insisting that "an eye is not enough." Resisting solipsism, these poems negotiate that conflict between the mind and what exists outside the mind. Though pain intrinsically resides in that conflict Henriksen strives for an honest happiness, a kind of gorgeous suffering that blesses our days. To this end, these poems emerge from images of all those innumerable things that embody both visceral and ethereal beauty—rocks, trees, broken glass, baseball, angels.... Here we find immediacy immersed in the image, and in the reading of these poems becomes ourselves immersed in the immediate.
Author City: FAYETTEVILLE, AR USA
Matthew Henriksen is the author of ORDINARY SUN (Black Ocean, 2011) and the chapbooks Another Word (DoubleCross Press, 2009) and Is Holy (horse less press, 2006). Some recent poems appear in FENCE, Realpoetik, Raleigh Quarterly, Alice Blue Review, Sink Review, The Cultural Society, Handsome Journal, and Two Weeks. He co- edits Typo, an online poetry journal, and publishes Cannibal Books, a book arts poetry press. From 2005 to 2008 he organized The Burning Chair Readings in Brooklyn and now hosts irregular readings throughout the country. A special feature of Frank Stanford's unpublished poems and fiction, selected by Henriksen, will appear in Fulcrum #7. He lives and teaches in the Ozark Mountains.
Reviews and Other Links
Kelly Forsythe @ Newcity Lit
Publishers Weekly starred review
Patrick James Dunagan @ NewPages
interview by Nicholas Sturm @ Bookslut
Erin Lyndal Martin @ Tarpaulin Sky Reviews
Laura Carter @ HTMLGIANT
interview by Peter Burghardt @ OmniVerse