Matt Rader | Living Things

October 7th, 2008

Living Things

Matt Rader

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Written in the year after the birth of Matt Rader’s first daughter, “Living Things” honestly introduces the contradictions of the modern world: “how what we see in daylight is less than whole / and also more so”. Using words in lieu of sonar, these poems bounce off the ecology of “shabby saturated grasses” and “panther-eyed armies salal” and locate both author and reader within a literary geneology, Matt Rader’s poetry brings subtle slowness to a chaotic, fast-paced environment. It is both celebration and documentation of this world and its relationship to all living things.

Matt Rader grew up in the Comox Valley on Vancouver Island. He is the editor of Mosquito Press and the co-founder of Crash: Vancouver’s Indie Writers Fest. He studied writing at the University of Victoria and the 2003 Banff Writing Studio. His poems and chapbooks have received praise from many quarters, including sub-TERRAIN, Broken Pencil, Geist and This Magazine. In 2004, he was selected for Breathing Fire 2: Canada’s New Poets, edited by Lorna Crozier and Patrick Lane. His first book, Miraculous Hours, was shortlisted for the Gerald Lampert Memorial Award for best first book of poetry.