Matthew W. Baker
Poetry
Matthew W. Baker grew up in Pittsburgh, PA but currently lives in Reno, NV and teaches high school English. He received his MFA from the University of Nevada, Reno. His work has appeared in The Vitni Review, The Summerset Review, The Matador Review, Booth Journal, Sundog Lit, Yemassee Journal, The Meadow, among others, and has been nominated for the Best New Poets and Best of the Net anthologies. His debut chapbook, Undoing the Hide’s Taut Musculature, released from Finishing Line Press in October 2019. He can be found on Twitter at @mmbakes and Instagram at @emembakes.
I’m told the story of how my college-age father “fell” from a building but survived,
“ This poem was born from a story my uncle told me as he was driving me to the airport after my cousin’s wedding. I didn’t really know my father while he was alive because we had a strained relationship, but I’ve been lucky enough to learn more about him from my aunts and uncle. On this drive, my uncle very candidly told me about my father’s drug and alcohol problems (catalyzed by abuse from his father) and followed up with a story about how my father was ultimately expelled from his first college: by jumping off the roof of one building and causing damage to himself and another structure. It’s unclear if my father purposely jumped or was in some drunken or drug-induced haze, but I wanted to try to imagine his decision. This poem is, too, a way for me to provide a blank slate for my father somewhere divorced from his problems in this life—somewhere he can flourish. I wanted to offer him a sliver of light, wherever his ghost may have gone. ”