Ted Mathys is author of The Spoils ($16, Coffee House Press)."[Mathys] is a bit like the mid-century poets of the New York School of poetry (which counts John Ashbery and Frank O'Hara among its members), only with the whimsy replaced by a menacing sense of claustrophobia. You find he can go from high culture to low in one stomach-churning swoop... wonderfully, disturbingly, upsettingly real. Reading Mathys, one remembers that poetry isn't a dalliance, but a way of sorting through life-or-death situations." - Los Angeles Times
Chris Martin is author of American Music ($15, Copper Canyon Press), recipient of the Hayden Carruth Award; he is the editor of Puppy Flowers.
