The Grace of Distance

Matthew Thorburn’s considerable poetic gifts bring the actual world joyfully alive in these poems. But this isn’t simple joy; it’s joy in conversation with the mounting losses and complexities of middle age. 'I can’t remember,' he writes, 'if I’ve only just arrived / or it’s time for me to go.' In his ekphrastic poem about The Girl with a Pearl Earring (painted in Vermeer’s middle age), Thorburn writes, 'Vermeer did // what we all want to do: make time stop / so we can see.' And that is what this book succeeds, beautifully, in doing—stopping time so we can see. ~Leslie Harrison, author of The Book of Endings, a finalist for the National Book Award

Matthew Thorburn’s book The Grace of Distance celebrates the quiet moments that pass between people. He writes, '[A] phrase—that’s all I’m after… / that catches the quiet hopefulness / of such careful documenting.' Like Vermeer’s paintings, Thorburn’s graceful poems reach across the distance that divides us all to say, 'We were here. This is what life was like once. / Not bad.' In our age of crisis, this is news that will stay news. ~Tomás Q. Morín, author of Patient Zero

In his elegant new collection of poems, The Grace of Distance, Matthew Thorburn mines the lyric possibilities of mid-life in loss and love and aliveness. Curiosity fuels insight in keen observations like: 'Did you know one pharaoh / had his heart wrapped in cloth / and placed in a little wooden box / when he died? Who wouldn’t / sometimes wish to set your heart / aside and close that lid?' This poet’s lyric distances are dreamy and worldly, wise and full of surprises. ~Elaine Sexton, author of Prospect/Refuge