Family Band

?What was there to do but to play music Thus begins the first and title poem of Matthew Gwathmey’s Family Band. What follows describes becoming a family of seven (?It Seemed That We Had Hardly Begun And We Were Already There?), complete with made-up bedtime stories (?Bear The Bear?), the learning of language (?A High Frequency Words List?), road trips (?Stargazing?), pastimes like gardening (?Different Kinds Of Blight?) and fishing (?Salmon Fishing?), games (?Hide & Seek?), TV shows (?Closed Captions Of Sweet Tooth, Season 1, Episode 6?), more games (?The Impossible Game?), and the joys of home ownership (?This House?). These poems catalogue family life up until the moment that the band decides to break apart, and everyone chooses to pursue their respective solo careers.

Matthew Gwathmey was born in Richmond, Virginia, and currently lives in Fredericton, New Brunswick, on Wolastoqey Territory, with his partner Lily and their five children. He studied creative writing at the University of Virginia and recently completed his PhD at UNB. He has work published in The Malahat Review, Crazyhorse, Prairie Fire, The Fiddlehead and The Iowa Review, as well as other literary magazines. His first poetry collection, Our Latest in Folktales, was published by Brick Books in the spring of 2019. His second collection, Tumbling for Amateurs, is forthcoming with Coach House Books.