Modern Life

“Harvey continues to match her unique sensibility with subjects that matter; her poems are both empathic and delightful.”—Publishers Weekly (Starred review)

Matthea Harvey’s MODERN LIFE introduces a new voice that tries to exist in the gray area between good and evil, love and hate. In the central abecedarian sequences, “The Future of Terror” and “The Terror of the Future,” Harvey imagines citizens and soldiers at the end of their wits at the impending end of the world. Her prose pieces and lyrics examine the divided, halved self in poems about centaurs, ship figureheads, and a robot boy. Throughout, Harvey’s signature wit and concision show us the double-sided nature of reality, of what we see and what we know.

Praise for Sad Little Breathing Machine:

“Harvey is a master of the surprising, illuminating connection—the cognitive jump-cut.... There is something of the Martian about Harvey…her disjunctions, reversals and bizarreries arise from her inquiry into the strangeness of sentience itself—how odd it is to think, feel and look.”—Maureen McLane, The Chicago Tribune