An insightful glimpse into the craft of Emory senior and poet Matthew Buxton.
Tell us a little about yourself!
My name is Matthew Buxton, I am a double major in Chemistry and Creative Writing, and I am originally from Salt Lake City, UT. I love poetry, weightlifting, traveling (have been to ALL 7 continents!), movies, photography, skiing, and lots more! I am attending UMich for my MFA in poetry starting in the fall!
When did you start writing poetry, and what inspired you to do so?
I started writing (terrible terrible) poetry my freshman year at Emory after taking ENG 205 for fun! I was raised in the LDS (Mormon) faith, and having recently come out as queer, I had a lot of rage and confusion. Poetry immediately became an outlet for me to release these feelings. I think this is what got me into poetry, but what has encouraged me to stay and explore this medium is the intricacy with which poetry works. I am also a chemist and have always loved math and science. Poetry to me feels like a very intricate string of words, like atoms of a molecule, that conform to a specific shape that can elicit strong emotional responses. Of course novels can do this on a larger scale, but for me, it is how the microscopic scale of poetry can impact the macroscopic emotions of a reader that makes me feel like a true creator.
Who are some of your artistic influences? How has their work shaped your own?
I have many many influences from so many different time periods. Some major poetry ones include Sharon Olds, Sylvia Plath, Jack Spicer, William Blake, and John Ashbury. They have all played unique and important roles in shaping my tone, content, aesthetic, and syntax.
How would you describe your poetics?
Having just finished an honors thesis and considering my growth as a poet at Emory, I would say I am just beginning to scratch the surface of what poetry can do. If I had to put a label on some of my interests, I would say my poetry often explores poetic form through a queer perspective to consider the ways tradition should be challenged, reclaimed, or reinvented.
Would you describe your art as autobiographical? To what extent does your background and life experience impact your art?
I think most of my early poetry was strictly autobiographical. It was a way for me to grapple with the complex emotions I was feeling as a queer person being so deeply raised in a homophobic religion. However, while writing my Honors Thesis (which consists of a post-apocalyptic heroic crown of sonnets), I’ve learned that there is great power and satisfaction in displaying autobiographical components through fictional narrative. It becomes a more exaggerated and reclaiming showing of personal emotion in a world that you are the ultimate creator of, regardless of the actual events that took place.
If you could take one poet (alive or dead) to dinner, who would it be?
Alive: I would take Sharon Olds to dinner!
Dead: I would take Sylvia Plath to dinner, no competition.
Emory is often cited as having one of the best creative writing programs in the country. How would you describe your experience in the program? Do you have any advice for incoming writers?
This is a really great question. Every program at Emory has its strengths and weaknesses, but what makes the Creative Writing program THAT good is the faculty. I am not kidding—having applied to MFAs, there is hardly anywhere undergraduate or graduate that can compete with the faculty prestige at Emory. But they are also some of the most caring people, aside from them being remarkable writers. Take the time to really connect with them. With that, I would say it is up to the initiative of the student if they are going to progress. This faculty wants to see you do well, but if you truly want to get better versus just getting an A, you have to take initiative. You need to fully put the ego aside and immerse yourself in the reading and understanding of the greats if you want to see your own writing evolve. You can not do it without them. Read, read, read!
If you could share artistic advice with your past self, what would you say? Is there anything you wish you knew when you first started writing poems or taking photographs?
I think I would gently and sincerely tell my past self that he does not know NEARLY as much as he thinks he does. The ego is the largest road block when progressing as a creative writer—the more you think you know, the worse you probably are. I would tell him to keep the fire and passion alive and well, but to really dive into books and see what poetry has done in the past as a way to shape and sculpt his contemporary writing in the future. Reading is the writer’s chisel of refinement.
Publication can be both terrifying and rewarding for young writers. When your voice and style are regularly evolving, the permanence of publication is intimidating. Have you ever found yourself feeling disconnected from your past work? How do you reconcile the desire to showcase your art with the challenges of an evolving poetic voice?
This is such a difficult question. Absolutely I feel disconnected from past work. Nobody starts as a good poet, I am sure of it. You have to write hundreds of terrible melodramatic poems to get a line or two of greatness. But it is so important to cherish that person you were when you had the commitment to write those bad poems. When I was at a recruitment event for NYU’s MFA program, Ocean Vuong talked about how the younger version of yourself who sat down and wrote a poem in full earnesty was a drop that created the ripple of who you are now. You have to give grace to that person because those bad poems are the reason you have the skill to write good ones. So when looking at work I have had published that I feel REALLY disconnected from, I have to remember that the person who felt so passionately to write that poem is the reason I still have a burning passion to continue to write, evolve, and share.
Read a sample of Matthew's poetry below!
Carnivores
You lay your heavy bald head on the white—
exhausted, whiskers still wet and dark
like my father's beard after a steak
bloody inside, seared along the edges.
It is clear you know how to eat
from the red streak in front of you:
a bruise on the light skin
of ice. My boat rocks quiet on water
in your place of hunt—I am prey now,
I know this. My anxious fingers slip,
the paddle slaps the surface.
I gather breath as if anticipating the strike
of a hand. Your neck rolls back forcefully;
eyes, black as the small room a boy is sent to, lock
with mine. You see me how my father does:
foreign, benign, but also with teeth.
The pulse quickens in my wrists as I grip
the shaft of the oar. How terrible it must be
to swallow everyone near you.
Gooseflesh pitches across my smooth belly
as your mouth opens, pink tongue
bigger than a skinned salmon.
Leopard seal, I see your teeth: mammalian
like mine, though we have evolved
too far apart to tell. I fear you
the way I do my father. Turning away,
desperately, I beat my paddle against water.
Head tilted to the sky, you release
a lonesome roar that follows me out to sea.
Reflecting on the Overturning of Roe v. Wade in Paris
It prongs the sky like the shaft of God’s
forked cock or an arrow split in four
by some invisible constant, like time.
A forested dirt path skirts
its base, and tree limbs bow
under the iron curved by pressure.
Do we preserve history
to make tradition appear natural?
From this rusty bench that chips
green copper on concrete, I see
people traverse it like a mountain:
pismires pushing up a narrow cervix
of sand. Or is the spire a woman?
A four-legged goddess of bronze
parting to release their small bodies.
How they seek to conquer her
like men ravaging inside.
From her crown, they see history
repeats when she is bent back.
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