Matthew Minicucci

Matthew Minicucci is an American writer and poet. His first full-length collection, Translation, won the 2015 Wick Poetry Prize, and his second collection, Small Gods, won the 2019 Stafford/Hall Oregon Book Award in Poetry.[1][2] Having received numerous fellowships and residencies, including with the National Park Service, the C. Hamilton Bailey Oregon Literary Fellowship, the Stanley P. Young Fellowship in Poetry from the Bread Loaf Writers' Conference, and the James Merrill House, Minicucci was named the 2019 Dartmouth College Poet-in-Residence at the Frost Place.[3]

Matthew Minicucci
Minicucci at the 2017 Utah Humanities Book Festival.
Born (1981-01-28) January 28, 1981
Lawrence, Massachusetts, US
OccupationPoet, teacher
LanguageEnglish, Greek (Attic and Homeric), Latin
NationalityAmerican
Alma materUniversity of Massachusetts Amherst
University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign
Literary movementNew Formalism
Notable awardsOregon Book Award, Wick Poetry Prize
Website
matthewminicucci.com
 Literature portal

Career

After completing a degree in Classical Literature and Languages, Minicucci pursued his MFA at the University of Illinois; he has trained with Brigit Pegeen Kelly, Tyehimba Jess, and A. Van Jordan. His chapbook, Reliquary, marshalls the Stations of the Cross to explore themes later positively received in the full-length Translation. The Kenyon Review remarked the book's ″attention to craft as well as its thematic concerns and narrative devices [invoke] ancient history and myth to make sense of the poet's own personal history of loss.″[4]

In his citation for the Oregon Book Award, judge and 2019 Pulitzer-prize winner Forrest Gander remarked

The lexicon is inordinately rich, somehow both precise and lush. And the poems are insistently but never portentously philosophical, grounded as they are in bailing twine, bared teeth, baptismal tears. Disinterested in irony, softly-toned, Minicucci opens depths inside us that we can sense long after we’ve closed his book.[5]

Minicucci's poetry, essays, fiction, and reviews have appeared in Alaska Quarterly Review, The Believer, The Cincinnati Review, Copper Nickel, the Gettysburg Review, Hayden's Ferry Review, The Massachusetts Review, Oregon Humanities magazine, Passages North, Pleiades, Poetry, Poetry Northwest, Salamander, Southern Indiana Review, The Southern Review, Tupelo Quarterly, the Virginia Quarterly Review, and West Branch, among others. It has also been featured on Verse Daily and Poetry Daily.

He serves as a member of the advisory board for Ninth Letter, and as senior poetry editor to Silk Road Review: A Literary Crossroads. Minicucci has taught writing at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Millikin University, Pacific University, the University of Portland,[6] and Linfield College.[7] He is currently a senior fellow with the Blount Scholars Program at the University of Alabama.[8]

Bibliography

Books
  • Small Gods: Poems. A Green Rose Book, New Issues Poetry & Prose / University of Chicago Press. 2017. ISBN 9781936970476.
  • Translation: Poems. Kent State University Press. 2015. ISBN 9781606352625.
  • Reliquary: Poems. Accents. 2013. ISBN 9781936628131.

Anthologies

Reviews
External audio
"Nostalgia" and interview with the author.[9]
″The Body,″ ″Proverbs,″ "Upsilon, "Beta," "Eta," "Omicron," "Pi," "Phi," "Omega," "Epithet," "Brief Song of the Almost-Lost," "Priam," and ″Philemon″ read by the author as part of an interview.[10]
″Beta,″ ″Nu,″ and ″Theta″ read by the author at Bread Loaf.[11]
Shelterbelt reading and interview with the author at the University of Illinois.[12]
″What we're talking about here″ and ″Book Twenty-Five″ read by the author.[13]

References
  1. Otwell, Rachel (February 24, 2016). "Shelterbelt Series: Matthew Minicucci's Poetry Has Midwestern Vibes & Heart-Breaking Themes" (Interview). Suggs Studio: NPR Illinois. Retrieved May 19, 2019.
  2. Smith, Suzette (April 23, 2019). "Hooray for the 2019 Oregon Book Award Winners!". Portland Mercury. Portland, OR. Retrieved May 19, 2019.
  3. "On Being Named the 2019 Dartmouth Poet in Residence". The Frost Place. Franconia, NH. May 10, 2019. Retrieved May 20, 2019.
  4. Brunton, Jamie (February 3, 2017). "On Matthew Minicucci's Translation". The Kenyon Review. Gambler, OH: Kenyon College. Retrieved May 19, 2019.
  5. "Book Award Finalists". 2019 Oregon Book Award Ceremony Program. Portland, OR: Literary Arts. April 22, 2019.
  6. "UP professor Matthew Minicucci wins 2019 Oregon Book Award". Portland, OR: University of Portland. May 1, 2019. Retrieved May 20, 2019.
  7. "English Faculty and Staff". Department of English. Linfield College. Retrieved August 20, 2019.
  8. "Faculty & Staff Directory". The Blount Scholars Program. University of Alabama. Retrieved May 11, 2020.
  9. Tonthat, Steven (May 9, 2020). "Pandemic Poetry: Oregon Poets Offer Reflection In Time Of Crisis". OPB. NPR. Retrieved May 9, 2020.
  10. Matthew Minicucci (February 19, 2018). Talking Earth with Matthew Minicucci (audio recording). KBOO Radio. Portland, OR.
  11. Matthew Minicucci (March 29, 2017). Mid Week Break: Matthew Minicucci Reads at Bread Loaf (audio recording). New England Review. Bread Loaf Writers' Conference.
  12. Matthew Minicucci (February 24, 2016). Shelterbelt Series: Matthew Minicucci's Poetry Has Midwestern Vibes & Heart-Breaking Themes (audio recording). NPR Illinois.
  13. Matthew Minicucci (December 2, 2014). Two Poems by Matthew Minicucci (audio recording). SoundCloud: Kenyon Review Online.
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