Chapbooks
Young Farmer
Finishing Line Press
“Like the mythical figure of the giant Antaeus, Matthew Spireng’s poems get their strength from having at least one foot on a specific patch of ground. In Young Farmer, memory of having to nurse collapsing bodies in harsh, rural America is less than a generation away. Spireng does not crop the ragged edge off of truth, but restores it . . . .”
—Vivian Shipley
Young Farmer Waits for Rain
Year before he’d have given
most anything for days like this:
blue sky, few clouds, calm
or a gentle breeze. Instead it rained
almost daily for a month so fields
turned to a series of ponds, seeds
rotted in the ground, and when finally
the rain let up, the fields were so wet
it was weeks before they could be
tilled again. And this year: last year’s
wish for dry days granted. No rain
for weeks so the soil was dust, the first
sprouts of corn withered and dead,
no sense in replanting until rain came again.
All he could do was wait. Last year for this.
This year for rain that was last year’s curse.
Encounters
Finishing Line Press
"If you would like to borrow the eyes of a poet to encounter the creatures and events of nature, see them in a clear and unusual light, then these are the poems for you. I'm tempted to call them 'Thoreauvian,' and that's what they are, but they are also 'Bashovian,' glimpses into the state of the world."
—Lewis Turco
May Night
Already a firefly
flashes high in the willow,
the day so warm
it felt like June coming on.
But the humidity was low,
and tonight the air became chill
beneath a clear and cloudless sky.
Now a lone firefly
awakened by the false summer sun
climbs feebly high in the willow
answering the clamor of stars.
Inspiration Point
Winner of 2000 Bright Hill Press
Poetry Chapbook Competition
“For many years I have been aware of Matthew Spireng’s gifts as an observer of nature, and as a poet. Until I read this collection, however, I had not considered how thoroughly and skillfully his poems avoid the great pitfall that awaits the sharp-eyed recorder of the slightly out-of-the-way. These are not mere notes on brief encounters with interesting phenomena; they are fine, memorable poems, and long after I am accustomed to the startling observations they contain, the delicate sturdiness of their poetic craft will keep calling me back to them.”
— Henry Taylor
Caged Bird
Some believe there’s somewhere in the brain
that senses minor fluctuations in the Earth’s
magnetic field and uses a sort of memory
of that to travel the same route year after year
over thousands of miles, over open ocean
on moonless, clouded nights, and a built-in clock
that, save for weather’s influence, tells
when it’s time to go. But they utter nothing
of thwarted dreams in birds’ brains, how
a few cubic feet near the ground, however
well-kept and lighted, however large it seems
around a small bright bird, is like a fist
closed tight on feather and bone, how, certain times
of year, the bird’s heart races as if to power flight.
A very limited number of the privately printed, limited edition chapbooks Just This (poems by Matthew J. Spireng and photographs by Trey Price) and Clear Cut (poems by Matthew J. Spireng and photographs by Austin Stracke) are available by contacting the author.
