After All CL: Avail in Paper

What sets Matthews apart from other pleasant, autobiographically inclined poets is that he doesn't emote by rote, but feels sharply and smartly, transforming his sometimes trite scenarios into plain, careful insights. In this last volume, prepared before his death last year at the age of 55, Matthews gathers the stuff of life--car alarms and collegiate days, hospital misery and divorce. His laconic humor is ever at the ready: At a job interview, the poet dodges questions by speaking ""fluent Fog."" In Scotland, he wonders about the ""astonishing sheep with canoe-shaped ears,"" and is pleased to learn from a shepherd that they are particularly stupid. Elsewhere, he recalls bringing ""back a tall bubbin for the nice lady,"" who turns out to be ""Martha Mitchell (wife of John/ Mitchell, soon to be Nixon's attorney general)."" He considers such meetings proof that we are ""by being born, a hostage/ to history"" and deadpans, ""Yes, there's cure for youth, but it's fatal."" The very best lines combine Matthews's affability with trenchant turns on himself or his beloveds: ""I like divorce. I love to compose/ letters of resignation"" or ""I saw her fierce privacy,/ like a gnarled luxuriant tree all hung/ with disappointments."" The all too human singularity of these poems only underlines Matthews irreplacability. (Sept.)