Town Crier
Sarah Matthes

Winner of the Lexi Rudnitsky First Book Prize in Poetry

The poems in Town Crier wryly express the pervasive nature of loss, how it suffuses all aspects of life: memories, hopes, love, sex, lunch. The death of the author’s dear friend, the poet Max Rivto, becomes the cornerstone of the book, a foundational pain along on which the poems are built. Sarah Matthes is equal parts jester and conjuror, sensing the precious alchemy of laughter and lament, crying out to those who have left hew and those who remain

“The poems in Sarah Matthes’ astonishing debut make me feel more alive. Also smarter, funnier, sadder, more generous, and far more nimble.”
—Lisa Olstein

“… a momentous introduction to a sensitive voice.”
—Foreword Reviews

Sarah Matthes received a BA from Yale University and an MFA from the Michener Center for Writers, where she was awarded an Academy of American Poets University Prize. She is the recipient of the 2019 Tor House Prize from the Robinson Jeffers Foundation and has received support for her work from the Yiddish Book Center. She lives in Austin but she will always be from New Jersey.

Paperback / $15.95 (Can $21.95) / ISBN 978-0-89255-527-7 / 96 pages / Poetry