Home – Page 46 – Nestucca Spit Press Meditations Blog

In perhaps the largest, most eclectic volume of previously unpublished poetry in the history of Pacific Northwest literature, Matt Love presents 148 poems written over a 30-year span.

As he writes in the introduction to A Substantial but Incomplete Autobiography in Poems, “I have organized this collection into six categories: Ocean, Love, My Life, Oregon Tavern Age, Homelessness, Probation. These poems serve as a substantial but incomplete autobiography.”

“Confessionals, odes, scatological doggerel, polemics, tankas, haiku, prose, psalms, requiems, observations, love letters, lamentations, lyrics, stream of consciousness, meditations, lists, riffs, a eulogy, a sermon, a commencement speech, found poetry, tributes, elegies. I threw it all into an ancient cement mixer and hand cranked that concrete beast while watching blue herons undulate overhead and drinking red wine as the husky snoozed in his dirt fort. The result: A Substantial but Incomplete Autobiography in Poems, something merging where Charles Bukowski, Richard Hugo, Mary Oliver and Liz Phair blend together.”

None of Love's poems were ever submitted to poetry journals, contests or magazines, making this collection a true renegade project of passion and readable to any denizen of a coastal dive bar.

Casting About with the Word “Cast”

Bonnie and Clyde Files 4

One Year Without Sonny

Unopened Fortune Cookies

The Bonnie and Clyde Files 3

Lost and Found 13 / The Creative Mind

Oregon Tavern Age: Hammond

What I Miss About Teaching

Beaverwood Birthday–A Birthday Poem

The Bonnie and Clyde Files 2

Lost and Found 12 / Lists

On My Dream about Beavers and…Diana Ross

“Soul Train Rollin!”: Paul K and the Greatest Get Down Block Party in Oregon History

NSP Correspondent / Matthew Sproul / Cross Current

The Bonnie and Clyde Files 1

On a Rilke Biography

Questions of the Moment

Thank You Readers

The Chill Tank or My Ten Days on the Boat in Jail

A Conde McCullough Tribute

Lost and Found 11 / One Year In

What Does it Augur?

Investigating Your Childhood-A Writing Exercise

An OTA Monday Apology

Breaking Bread with Birds

Ocean Writing Workshop in Astoria July 15

Rapprochement

Aimee Mann, Ray and a Faux Writer on the Alaska Highway

What I Did This Sunday on the Oregon Coast Before 1:30 P.M.

Rock Bottom

A Message from Sonny

Thoughts on Beach Bill’s 50th Anniversary and Draft Resolution

OTA Mother’s Day

What Friends Did For Me Last Week

Dear Oregon

A Visit to the Valley of the Giants with a Special Oregonian Part 2

A Visit to the Valley of the Giants with a Special Oregonian Part 1

Maurice Lucas and Bob Straub: Two of My Oregon Heroes

Lost and Found 10 / Faces

Thoughts on the Upcoming Vortex 2 in Portland