Matthew Nienow in conversation with Cori A. Winrock - If Nothing

If Nothing is an honest reckoning with the grip of addiction, the expectations of masculinity, and the tug of family.  

When mid-life collides with the precariousness of alcoholism, the vulnerability of opening oneself to a second coming-of-age becomes an ecstatic cry in poems that confront pain and the need for forgiveness. An unvarnished and direct accounting of the journey to sobriety, of struggles with mental health, and with the challenges of longing and loss, If Nothing traverses the sting of shame, the earnestness of joy, and the desire for absolution.  Kevah Akbar, author of Martyr! and Calling a Wolf a Wolf, says: "Matthew Nienow shows us in If Nothing that he is a poet of birth, of making and making anew... This is powerful medicine, salve for earnest souls in an era of ethical infantilization. There is grace here, real grace made wise by having known real grief; If Nothing is a lasting book."   

Matthew Nienow's debut collection, House of Water, was published by Alice James Books in 2016. His poems have appeared or are forthcoming in such venues as 32 Poems, Georgia Review, New England Review, and Poetry. A former Ruth Lilly Poetry Fellow, he has also received fellowships and support from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Bread Loaf Writers' Conference, the Elizabeth George Foundation, Artist Trust, and 4Culture. He lives in Port Townsend, Washington with his wife and two sons where he is pursuing a degree in Mental Health Counseling.

Cori A. Winrock is a poet and multimedia essayist. Her second collection, (2020), was awarded Editor's Choice for the Alice James Books Prize. Her book-length essay, Alterations, was recently published by Transit Books. She is the winner of the Boston Review Poetry Prize and her essay on twins was selected as a notable essay in Best American Essays. Her work has appeared in POETRY, the Best New Poets anthology, Bennington Review, Black Warrior Review, West Branch, Fairy Tale Review and elsewhere. Winrock holds an MFA from Cornell University and a PhD in Literature and Creative Writing from University of Utah. She is an Assistant Professor of Interactive Poetry at Western Washington University.

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