Mezzanines

There is no place Matthew Olzmann doesnt visit in his poignant debut. From underwater to outer space, Mezzanines is a contained universe, constantly shifting through multiple perceptions of the surreal and the real. A lyrical conversation with mortality, Olzmann explores identity, faith, and our sense of place, with an acute awareness of our minute existence.

From "NASA Video Transmission Picked Up By Baby Monitor":

How many shadows are there left to name?

Logophobia is the fear of words. Keraunothnetophobia

is the fear of falling man-made satellites.

Imagine this last one:

you walk outside and look to heaven

expecting a sky lab plunging down on you—wires

everywhere, bolts loosening, metal body in flames.

Instead, you see only blue, endless blue,

the color of a babys new blanket, cloaking everything.

Matthew Olzmann is a graduate of the MFA program for writers at Warren Wilson College. His poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Kenyon Review, New England Review, Inch, Gulf Coast, Rattle, and elsewhere. Hes received fellowships from Kundiman and the Kresge Arts Foundation. Currently, he is a writer-in-residence for the InsideOut Literary Arts Project and the poetry editor of The Collagist.