Matthew Savoca - "I would like to marry Matthew, but after reading this lovely work, it suddenly seems like a bad idea"

Matthew Savoca, long love poem with descriptive title, The Scrambler, 2010.


“Matthew Savoca’s poetry is like a slow-spinning ceiling fan. It’s like the feeling of being under the ceiling fan. It’s like the feeling of looking up at the ceiling fan. It’s like the feeling of falling half-asleep beneath it. And this book is the calm, sunny room that you’re in.
I could think of a million other tiny small things to say (probably all of them about things like washing dishes) that make me think of Matthew’s poetry and how it’s one of the best things that I know about that exists. Everything seems a little lighter and easier and sunnier if I think about them after thinking about Matthew’s poetry.
You should probably be in love with Matthew Savoca. He wrote this book for you.” – Colin Bassett

“long love poem with descriptive title has this tender sensibility about domestic life, but it’s still very dour and a little sad. It has this way of displaying the repetitive quality of relationships that is comforting but ultimately depressing as hell. I would like to marry Matthew, but after reading this lovely work, it suddenly seems like a bad idea.” – Kendra Grant Malone

"long love poem with descriptive title is a full-length poetry book consisting of one long poem accompanied by little drawings of plants, animals, and a lamp. an un-named famous musician (has a record review on pitchfork.com) said this to me in an email about this book: “…I especially like your dialogue. You reign all the sadness of the world into short, simple, and sweet phrases that somehow tame all the chaos of corpses leaking into the water pipes…” – Matthew Savoca


"How did this book begin as a manuscript? How did it find its place? How did it end?
- this book began as a manuscript of one line that i couldn’t stop thinking in my head: “large eyes are what make you beautiful”. then i just kept adding to it periodically all summer long as the document sat open on my computer screen on a little desk in a tiny corner of a room four floors up. i think it found its place just by walking calmly wherever it wanted to go, like a dog on a leash so long that it was almost not recognizable as a leash but as part of the scenery.
Are you scared? What are you scared of?
- i am not so scared, but recently i realized that i have no idea at all what friendship is, and that scared me a little.
Do you ever think about what you are going to write about something as the something is happening?
- i do that kind of a lot, but i try not to. the more i do it, the worse it comes out when i write about it later. it always comes out best the stuff i didn’t think “oh, i’m going to write such-and-such about this later on”.
Do you see yourself inside your book, or does it seem like other people? Do you feel you have modes?
- i see a slightly-outdated version of myself inside the book. being involved in the publishing of this book has felt a lot like reading old emails and thinking to myself, “oh, man, i remember this. i remember saying that.” because i wrote this book two years ago and just now people are reading it. and since this book is almost kind of like a conversation that i never had, then people reading it two years later is like all of a sudden finding out that you were on the other end of a conversation that never happened two years ago. i don’t feel that i have modes as in a circle, but maybe stations as in a line. that might just be the way i want to see it. on second thought, i am a circle sometimes.
How does a book correspond with the act of love, as an object?
- if the act of love is choosing to consider someone else before you consider yourself, then this book, as an object, is a bounded stack of paper with particular patterns of ink on it that is being sold for 12 dollars with free shipping in the US.
if the act of love is seeing in another person what you love about yourself, then this book, as an object, is like the search bar in your gmail account that you keep going back to over and over again to find exactly what you need, if it’s there.
What is something you have hid?
- i have hid my face in my arms. my penis, i hide that everyday inside of my clothes. i have hid my family, my upbringing. i have hid what i really think about a lot of people and events. i have hid anger and love and i have hid sickness." - Interview with Blake Butler