Reviews of Modern Life
“A pleasure…this collection should make us optimistic about the future of American poetry.”
—The New York Times Book Review
“Nothing short of blazingly original.” —Daniel Nester, Time Out New York
"Funny, smart … you should plan on purchasing it." —The Kenyon Review
"Rife with her signature wit [and] darkened by an ominous sense of fearfulness in a post-9/11 world … Harvey continues to match her unique sensibility with subjects that matter; her poems are both empathic and delightful." —Publishers Weekly, starred review
“In Modern Life, each [poem] reads like a stern and glorious fable of freakishness.” —Heather Caldwell, Book Forum
“Matthea Harvey’s poetry collection, Modern Life, comments on the ways societies are built and offers a post-apocalyptic view of the world…The apocalypse never seemed so humorous, and it never seemed so frightening.” —Lisa Bower, Feminist Review
“Though the prerequisite to accessing her poetry might feel to be a sizeable IQ it’s really a sizeable heart—that for all the braininess at work, her poems sing and move and, emphatically, feel and induce feeling.” —Bookslut
“This collection of poems is far from bleak. Humor, surrealism, and the unexpected all fuel the energy of the work.” —Miriam Sagan, The Santa Fe New Mexican
