Issue 75 (2024)
DOI: 10.18422/75-1781
© Göttingen University Press

A Kind of Ars Poetica

Adrian Matejka

Another Sunday morning,
unbuttoned & carousing,
the usual suspects in the usual
get ups—spritzes of colognes,
big block letters on sweatshirts.
The church bells ring periodically
in the distance, reminders
of the church pew I’m supposed
to be parked in. Slick shoes on,
a couple of bright chains tangling
around my neck as I try to outrun
myself on a brick street lined
with museums. Antiquity on every
floor, persistent as the bells
that keep clanging. This is the old
me: just dumb enough to expect
my escape plans might work
because they were my plans.
The me who mistook fall plumage
in the periphery for the replicated
Van Gogh in my mother’s garage,
hours practicing a French horn
out there to twirl in the hero line.
Those days, when I was high
minded & wobbly, French horn
handed, I wanted the same things
Van Gogh did probably, only
in decibels. Pigment & lasting dye,
everything bright & forgivable.

About the author

Adrian Matejka is the author of seven books, most recently a mixed media collection inspired by Funkadelic, Standing on the Verge & Maggot Brain (Third Man Books, 2021) and a collection of poems, Somebody Else Sold the World (Penguin, 2021), which was a finalist for 2022 UNT Rilke Prize and the Indiana Authors’ Award. His first graphic novel Last On His Feet (Liveright, 2023) was selected as one of the ten best books of 2023 by the New York Public Library. Among Matejka’s other honors are fellowships from the Academy of American Poets, the Guggenheim Foundation, the Lannan Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Rockefeller Foundation, and a Simon Fellowship from United States Artists. He served as Poet Laureate of the state of Indiana in 2018-19 and is Editor of Poetry magazine.

This work is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International.