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Desire for More Cows
Copyright © 1998
by Matt Mason
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Matt Mason, author of Old Froggo's Book of Practical Cows, has
released another collection of poetry. Titled Desire For More Cows,
the slim volume moves beyond the simply
bovine with ruminations on topics such as "Spiced Pork Rinds" and "Yahweh
and the Belgian Waffle." The collection's centerpiece is undoubtedly "Cows
Who Run With The Deer," an ode about Emily, a cow that leapt a 5-foot fence
to escape the slaughterhouse. Mason's poem wonders about the cow's
adventures in the wild. — John Keenan, Omaha World-Herald
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Old Froggo's Book of
Practical Cows
Copyright © 1997
by Matt Mason
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Old Froggo's Book of Practical Cows, a cow-and-Omaha themed poetry
collection by Matt Mason of Bellevue, available at the Village Bookstore
at 87th and Pacific Streets. The 39-page booklet, self-published by
Mason, is a hoot. It contains poems with titles such as "Nonviolent
Resistance and a Cow," "When Cows Ruled the Earth," and "Ode to Omaha."
— John Keenan, Omaha World-Herald,
While many of the poems in Old Froggo's and Desire are
serious on he surface, Mason's tongue is at times firmly planted in
his cheek. — Bruce R Nelson, Grassroots
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When the Bough Breaks
Copyright © 2005
by Matt Mason
Lone Willow Press
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Matt Mason's beautifully direct language ("Let me start by saying that my dad died of
AIDS ...") is both disarming and comforting. In When the Bough Breaks,
the surface of Mason's narratives is skillfully interrupted by bereavement and
memory. Mason is a poet readers trust. He pulls us in with poems that are precise,
moving, disturbing, and consoling. — Denise Duhamel
Powerful, self-searching poems. — William Kloetkorn
I confess I'm a Matt Mason fan. That doesn't make me special —
his poems have made fans out of a lot of folks. They have a way of silencing the
distracting chatter of the 21st century with clarity, intelligence and generosity
of spirit. Mason genuinely likes and trusts his readers. He wants us along for the ride
— even when, or maybe especially when, the trip is rough on the tender heart.
What is special is When the Bough Breaks, a whole that's greater than the sum of its
terrific parts. How could I not be a fan? Matt Mason is one of a handful of writers
in any genre who's made me laugh till I cried and then, a heartbeat or two later, moved
me to weep, not for the losses we inevitably suffer, but at the courage we necessarily
muster to travel beyond our grief. — JV Brummels
Matt Mason's poems will break your heart! ...
His poems, of course, are elegies. But they are
fresh and original in sensibility.
— Tom Snyder, author of Two Dogs and a Cigar
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Things We Don't Know We Don't Know
Copyright © 2005
by Matt Mason
Backwaters Press
How to Buy
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Things We Don't Know We Don't Know debuted at #12 on the Poetry Foundation best
seller list for contemporary poetry books (May 28th, 2006). Why? Because it's a great
read: more entertaining than you'd think a book of poetry should be and more poetic than
you'd think an entertaining book can be. — from the publisher
Rebel With a Cause — Matt Mason is a revolutionary. And not just when he's writing
about vigorous political outrage (the title of his new collection is from a Donald
Rumsfeld quote). Even Mason's poems filled with gentle insight, kindness, humor
and grace are small, feisty acts of rebellion — crystallizing a new way of thinking,
feeling, behaving. — Michael Burke
The only thing better than reading these poems is to hear Matt Mason himself read them.
— Marjorie Saiser, author of Bones of a Very Fine Hand
Matt Mason must be declared the poet laureate of the Midwest! No other native son
celebrates the overlooked America, its unsung citizens (from the anonymous poets to the
part-time English teachers), and its expansive indigenous landscape, as well as he does.
Mason's poetry is humorous when he wants to be quirky, heartbreaking when he wants to be
eloquent, and though he moves effortlessly into other moods and geographies, he always
returns to his first and most enduring love (and to what he knows best) — his
homeland. — Rigoberto Gonzalez, author of So Often The Pitcher Goes to Water
Before It Breaks
Although Mason takes his title from Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld's nonclarification of
US policy regarding "the war on terror," this exuberant poet helps us to see clearly a
cornucopia of things we too often forget we know. Whether turning his attention to
kiwifruit, Wild Kingdom's Marlin Perkins, the Strategic Air Command Museum, or lovers who
with luck may come to resemble a no-expiration-date snack cake, Mason sheds some of his
Nebraskan light on our universally human proceedings. And anyone who can actually say,
for the poem-record, "I believe that aliens built the Pyramids, Stonehenge, / and most of
my ex-girlfriends" surely knows, by heart, a few more things we only think we may be
better off not knowing. — David Clewell, author of Now We're Getting Somewhere
and The Low End of Higher Things
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What the Critics Say
Bibliography
