Matt Mason (poet)

Matt Mason is a poet based in Omaha,Nebraska born in 1968. In 2019, he was named Nebraska's 3rd State Poet, serving from 2019 until November 2023. He has published eight chapbooks and two full-length works of poetry as well as two anthologies. Mason has written about fatherhood, relationships, religion and the Bible, and themes of Midwest and Great Plains life. Mason's early work gave him a reputation as a humorous poet, but he has written comedy, drama, and tragedy.[1]

Six of Mason's eight chapbooks have been published through his own small press, Morpo Press. His first full-length book, Things We Don't Know We Don't Know (2006), was published by the Backwaters Press and debuted at #12 on The Poetry Foundation's Contemporary bestsellers list. His second book The Baby That Ate Cincinnati was released in 2013 by the Stephen F. Austin University Press. The anthology Slamma Lamma Ding Dong (2005), which Mason co-edited, was made available through iuniverse and won the 2006 Nebraska Book Award for Best Anthology.[2]

Mason is a poetry activist in the Omaha area. He operates the Poetry Menu, a website that lists poetry events in Nebraska. Mason has been a member of the team representing Omaha at the National Poetry Slam on multiple occasions from 2003, most recently in Oakland, CA, August 2015. Mason currently serves as Executive Director of Nebraska Writers Collective, festival coordinator for the Louder Than a Bomb: Great Plains Youth Poetry Festival, past board president for the Nebraska Center for the Book, and served as a consultant for the Nebraska Arts Council for Nebraska’s Poetry Out Loud program (an NEA/Poetry Foundation program) until 2016. He has served on the board of directors for the Nebraska Literary Heritage Association, the Omaha Entertainment and Arts Awards, Friends of the Omaha Public Library, and the Medusa Project. In October, 2015, Mason served as a representative for the U.S. State Department in Romania teaching Poetry slam to high schools students in various cities.[3] Mason has also been in charge of State Department programs in Belarus (2008), Nepal (2010), and Botswana (2014).

Mason is married to the poet Sarah McKinstry-Brown (Sarah Mason). They have two daughters, Sophia and Lucia.

Bibliography
This list is incomplete; you can help by adding missing items with reliable sources.

Chapbooks
  • Old Froggo's Book of Practical Cows, Morpo Press, 1997.
  • Desire for More Cows, Morpo Press, 1998.
  • A Blessing and A Curse, Morpo Press, 2000.
  • A Still, Small Voice, Morpo Press, 2001.
  • Coffee and Astronomy and Other Poems, Morpo Press, 2001.
  • Mistranslating Neruda, New Michigan Press, 2002.
  • Red, White, Blue, Morpo Press, 2003.
  • When the Bough Breaks, Lone Willow Press, 2005.

Books
  • Things We Don't Know We Don't Know, Backwaters Press, 2006 ISBN 0-9765231-8-3
  • The Baby That Ate Cincinnati, Stephen F. Austin University Press, 2013 ISBN 978-1936205943

Poems
Title Year First published Reprinted/collected in
Notes for my daughter against chasing storms 2011 Mason, Matt (May 2011). "Notes for my daughter against chasing storms". Nebraska Poets Calendar. Henderson, Bill, ed. (2013). The Pushcart Prize XXXVII : best of the small presses 2013. Pushcart Press. pp. 108–109.

References
  1. http://www.pw.org/content/matt_mason
  2. "Nebraska Book Award". centerforthebook.nebraska.gov. 2015. Retrieved 26 August 2015.
  3. "American poet comes to Romania to teach students slam poetry". romania-insider.com. 2015. Retrieved 20 October 2015.
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