David E. Matthews

Failed Poet

bricollage book release on Amazon . . .

Posted on By admindavid

242 pages.

Available on Amazon

Preface, a quote from Paul Metcalf, after David Kadlec, after Claude Levi-Strauss

David Kadlec, in an unpublished essay, describes the theory of bricolage, as developed by the French anthropologist, Claude Levi-Strauss: “Bricolage is distinguished from the work of the craftsman insofar as the materials used are those salvaged from the wreckage of previous constructions rather than materials designed specifically for the task at hand. Levi-Strauss views mythical thought, which draws from an extensive but limited repertoire, as a kind of intellectual bricolage. New myths can be wrought exclusively from the fragments of old ones.”

Fragments of old myths, old voices are caught up as they float to the surface. Original meanings may be lost or incomprehensible or conceived only in the abstract. But carefully and patiently put together in new relationships and in a current context, they are charged with new force.

In our multiethnic, multicultural, severely disjointed world, bricolage may be our most natural mode.

Fulsome Times

Posted on By admindavid

179 pages.

Fullsome Times, indeed. There are not hours in the day to contain all that we have experienced. As Einstein has been paraphrased, “Time is Nature’s way of making sure everything does not happen at once”, but Time is breaking down. As the Horse-Opera Hero used to say, “There’s not enough room in this town for both of us”. Now there is not enough room for any of us, and yet we have never been more alone. In this era of alienation and global derangement of the senses, we should all be forgiven for being a fool sometimes.

available from Amazon

Max Nix

Posted on By admindavid

92 pages

David E. Matthews is saddened by the direction of events, but more perplexed that things are not worse than, or better than, they actually are, if what people believe is true. He has become suspicious – not to say paranoid – of people who seem positive of what is real, and true. The reverberations and resonances of literature is all that sustains him.

Available at Amazon     

 

Opus in Progressu

Posted on By admindavid

62 pages.

After extensive introspection, it has become clear to the author that human intelligence is vastly over-estimated, and that communication in this era of social media & Trump is breaking down under the stress. Whether this art is an example of this debilitation or only an aesthetic reaction to it, remains the province of the viewer.

Buy it on Amazon!