The Smallest Working Pieces (Toadlily Press, 2009)

Nienow’s poems are lyrically spare and mysterious, often striking a perfect balance between concrete and abstract, as in the brilliant “String Theory”: “Burnished. Bead. Spotted/ and shining. . . . What could be is only/ a limit of the mind.”

—Cynthia Hogue

“By a remarkable alchemy, these disparate elements merge into a single, compelling unity.”

—Susan Settlemeyer Williams

“In all of these poems one is also reminded of Edward Albee’s idea of going a great distance only to return through a much shorter passage somehow changed, ratified in the work of returning. There is something sober, something taking measure here, and yet there is the wildness of opportunity that language itself bears wonderfully into the poems.”

—Sean Nevin

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Two Sides of the Same Thing (Southeast Missouri State University Press, 2007)

“With ‘dark swollen words and shifting air,’ Matthew Nienow builds poems as if building boats, ‘each strip like a tree’s growth,’ and ‘asking the question rivers are always asking: why?’ From Nienow I am grateful to have learned that poetry ‘is movement with one desire: to pull at whatever it touches.’ There is much talk these days of the importance of a poet’s voice. But here we have proof that a poet’s ear… for music, for complexity, for ‘the prodigal aria returning home’…is just as important.”

— Todd Boss

“Matthew Nienow moves like an attentive guide into the wild power of earth and the imagination…. All around him, mouths are poised to tell stories. He listens. The poems that have come of his journey are collective but intimate. While loss unsettles, love reassures. Self-revelation inspires trust as we, too, are called to witness cycles of generation and loss beyond human control.”

—Diane LeBlanc

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Best New Poets 2007

Best New Poets has established itself as a crucial venue for rising poets and a valuable resource for poetry lovers.

The only publication of its kind, this annual anthology is made up exclusively of work by writers who have not yet published a full-length book. The poems included in this eclectic sampling represent the best from the many that have been nominated by the country’s top literary magazines and writing programs, as well as some two thousand additional poems submitted through an open online competition.

The work of the fifty writers represented here provides the best perspective available on the continuing vitality of poetry as it’s being practiced today.

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Arctic Inspired

[This project...] stands as a testament to how the rugged beauty and vastness of the tundra inspire the people who visit it…

Changes are happening in the central arctic as industrial interests increase and climate change looms. But even yet, it is one of the last great wilderness areas on Earth. My hope is that the generous contribution of our inspired works will pay tribute to the land, the people who call it home, and to you – the crazy people who travel thousands of kilometers to have their very flesh ravaged by incorrigible black flies, just to dip a paddle and eat some bannock with the midnight sun in your eyes.