{"id":2075,"date":"2017-09-29T19:59:13","date_gmt":"2017-09-29T23:59:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.uakron.edu\/uapress\/product\/import-placeholder-for-181\/"},"modified":"2022-12-05T12:48:29","modified_gmt":"2022-12-05T17:48:29","slug":"vasectomania","status":"publish","type":"product","link":"https:\/\/blogs.uakron.edu\/uapress\/product\/vasectomania\/","title":{"rendered":"Vasectomania"},"content":{"rendered":"

In his third collection, Matthew Guenette continues to explore work and class, this time from the perspective of a narrator who is perpetually\u2014and outrageously\u2014on the run. These voice-driven and formally inventive poems yearn and shout, tremble in a delirium of parenting and partnering, and thrash with humor and a blue-collar sensibility.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

What\u2019s weird is that I haven\u2019t laughed this hard reading poetry\u2014or, for that matter, laughed this hard doing anything else\u2014in a long time. What\u2019s weird is that at the end of the book I felt melancholy and close to somebody (or maybe something, maybe nothing, maybe a six pack of shitty beer). What\u2019s weird is I thought of the word \u201cinsect,\u201d and then of the phrase \u201cchicken nuggets.\u201d What\u2019s weird is actually being somebody\u2019s father after having one. What\u2019s weird is how impossibly absurd it all is: marriage, kids, drugs, death, more drugs. What\u2019s weird is that\u00a0Vasectomania<\/i><\/span>\u00a0is a book for the whole family. However, the weirdest thing of all is that these poems are so brilliantly, shockingly honest, open, and true to what\u2019s ordinary that it\u2019s totally clear how extraordinary life is, even when it\u2019s paradise flushed down the toilet, even when somebody\u2019s screaming for more of it. Matthew Guenette\u2019s written a twenty-first century American classic\u2014loving, irreverent, hilarious, and dark. What\u2019s weird is that every fucking light in the house is on, and right now he\u2019s outside mowing his lawn.\u00a0\u2014Matt Hart<\/b><\/p>\n

About the Author<\/h3>\n

Matthew Guenette received an MFA from Southern Illinois University. He is the author of two previous poetry collections:\u00a0American Busboy<\/em>\u00a0(University of Akron Press, 2011) and\u00a0Sudden Anthem<\/em>\u00a0(Dream Horse Press, 2008) as well as a chapbook,\u00a0Civil Disobedience<\/em>(Rabbit Catastrophe Press, 2017). Recent work has appeared in\u00a0Forklift: Ohio<\/em>,\u00a0Spoon River Poetry Review<\/em>,\u00a0Sou\u2019wester<\/em>,\u00a0Southern Indiana Review<\/em>, and\u00a0TYPO<\/em>. He lives in Madison, WI, and teaches composition and creative writing at Madison College.<\/p>\n

Other books by Matthew Guenette<\/h3>\n