where the writers are
Squish Boots
Squish Boots
Amazon.com Amazon.com
Powell's Books Powell's Books

Clive gives an overview of the book:

"Delightful and penetrating at the same time, these poems are a revelation." — Susan Griffin, Author Open this book and fall into a tumultuous world where each act sings, shouts and cries the full chorus of the unconscious. Matson uses kaleidoscopic images that infiltrate our work-a-day defenses and invite our deepest feelings and truths to surface - like taking a roller caster ride with an old sage/young boy, hair streaming white, knuckles clenched, eyes closed, laughing. And when you open those eyes - there - what do you see?
Read full overview »

"Delightful and penetrating at the same time, these poems are a revelation." — Susan Griffin, Author

Open this book and fall into a tumultuous world where each act sings, shouts and cries the full chorus of the unconscious. Matson uses kaleidoscopic images that infiltrate our work-a-day defenses and invite our deepest feelings and truths to surface - like taking a roller caster ride with an old sage/young boy, hair streaming white, knuckles clenched, eyes closed, laughing. And when you open those eyes - there - what do you see?

Read an excerpt »

Back Words (excerpt)

I'm standing in a doorway

with a mouthful of dirt.

Trying to read the words

stuck in my back,

 

commands written on walls

in childhood and layered

over with candy paint.

 

Phrases bled through in

squiggles like string after

a cat's play or like

Venusian street guides.

 

I peeled off that map.

Wrapped it around my boyhood.

Skin grew over landmarks

and planted them deep

under muscles and nerves.

 

 

 

clive-matson's picture

Note from the author coming soon...

About Clive

"Penetrating curiosity" is what his elementary school teacher saw in Clive Matson. Writing a poem about the wind -- in Southern California hills behind the avocado ranch where he grew up -- and reading the first page of Joyce's Portrait of an Artist ...

Read full bio »

Published Reviews

Jan.29.2008

"Anyone who's had the creativity beaten out of them at some point in our society's educational system - which may mean all of you - would do well to check out Oakland poet Clive Matson's creative...