Micah Mattix

I’m thankful to have Micah Mattix as curator of my daily literary and arts readings. Mattix’s newsletter, Prufrock, delivers the day’s best news and reviews, selects a sample essay to consider at length, offers an image and a poem, and looks ahead to forthcoming books. The newsletter is a text itself, an exercise in both discretion and diversity. Mattix passes judgement at moments, while at other times he offers links in silence. It’s a wonderful, effective mix.

Of course, reading Mattix’s newsletter led me to seek out his own writing. His prose is sharp and clear, and he often seems to have the clearest mind regarding tangled subject matter. I’ve linked to some of his writings in the text of this interview, but of particular interest to readers of this site are his perceptive takes on a variety of Catholic writers. His First Things essay on Flannery O’Connor and Walker Percy shows an admirable ability: engage ambiguity, conduct a comparison, but have a point.

I’ve learned much from Mattix’s selections and perspectives, so it was a treat to ask these questions.

1.  You've recently celebrated two milestones for Prufrock, your excellent daily arts and letters newsletter: the 100th installment, and a merger with The American Conservative.

How did Prufrock begin? How did you decide upon the form and structure of the newsletter? How has Prufrock been received?

I subscribe to Ben Domenech's political newsletter "The Transom," and I like the convenience of the format. Instead of scouring several websites for articles on politics or news items, I just open the newsletter every morning, read what interests me and move on with my day. There are a number of political newsletters and sports newsletters, but no daily newsletter devoted to literature and the arts.

I had also tired somewhat of a couple of arts and literature aggregation sites that had become a bit slanted or repetitive. Interesting pieces I was reading elsewhere were ignored, and I wanted to share those pieces with other folks. I don't agree with everything I link in the newsletter, but I hope the pieces at least pose interesting questions even if the response is unconvincing.

2. I was intrigued to learn via RodDreher's profile that you studied economics before moving to literature. Why the switch, and how has that background influenced your approaches toward texts, teaching, and writing?

That's a good question. I was a math major first then moved to economics. Economics is rigorous and counterintuitive. You look at phenomenon from angles that might be ignored, which can sometimes lead to surprising conclusions. In economics entertaining seemingly implausible theses is encouraged--at least as an opening move--though these, in turn, must be supported with evidence. As a critic, I approach texts in a similar way, which is great fun, and I think most critics approach texts in this way--moving from speculative thesis to evidence then back to the thesis. Other than the math, economics really has a great deal in common with reading imaginative texts.

I had always loved reading (writing less, my love of that came later). I took honors English classes at the university alongside my economics courses. After I graduated, I married a Swiss girl, and we lived the first year in a small Swiss town on Lake Geneva. But I couldn't find a job in business, in part because my French was not so good at the time and my German non-existent (and also because economics is not always the most practical discipline). As a university student, I did the accounting for a language center in Raleigh, and I saw these teachers taking cigarette breaks every 45 minutes for 15 minutes, and I thought "That looks like a pretty good gig." I found a language center in Geneva, applied and got a job teaching English and discovered I loved teaching (and also that it was hard work!). So I went back to school and eventually did a Ph.D. in literature.

3. In the vein of that excellent article by Dreher--who are some of the most impressive, engaging contemporary creative writers and artists in the conservative tradition?

I am sure my liberal friends would quibble with this, but I take "conservative tradition" to mean writers (following Burke) that value the classical tradition, that value the "hierarchy" of the complex sentence and complex work, that understand the value of art primarily in spiritual terms, not political ones, and that show some sense of certain universal, natural laws. So, as you can imagine, there are a number of writers who may not be conservative politically but who fit within what I view as the conservative tradition of art and letters. 

I don't know what his politics are, and I don't want to blacklist him by putting him in the "conservative tradition" column, but I love the poetry of Bill Coyle. His The God of This World to His Prophet is complex, nuanced, full of humanity, surprising, and shows a poet who makes the most of the tension between form and variation. His translations are also wonderful. There's Dana Gioia, of course, whose latest volume of poems is wonderful. Again, in poetry, I enjoy Amit Majmudar's compact, sonorous and evocative work and A.E. Stallings's coy engagement with tradition. In painting, I love Aaron Collier's work. He is a young professor of practice at Tulane who does not shy away from religious and deeply human themes.

4. In your introduction for Prufrock at The American Conservative, you identify some of your favorite living poets as "Dana Gioia, Yves Bonnefoy, Bill Coyle, and Aaron Belz." Why those choices?

Because they are so different from each other and each wonderful in their own way. 

If you are a conservative, there is this misconception that you don't read very widely in contemporary poetry or fiction or have never thought seriously about them. I once wrote a piece on Flarf, and a blogger for Poetry, after specifying that my piece appeared in a publication for a "right-wing think-tank" (hint, hint!, though they didn't mention that it was housed at Princeton), wrote flippantly that I had never "read anything ever written about poetry or aesthetics," which was kind of funny for its stomping, tantrum-like immaturity. So I guess I mentioned those writers also to try to avoid getting pigeon-holed, but it still happens--a lot, in fact, and it's still stunning to me how narrow a world some poets or critics inhabit--but that's life.  

5. You have written about Walker Percy, Tobias Wolff, Evelyn Waugh, J.F. Powers, Frank O'Hara, and other Catholic writers. As you've noted on Prufrock, there has been a pointed resurgence of arguments about the state of contemporary Catholic letters (volleys from Elie, Wolfe, Boyagoda, and others). Any thoughts on this conversation?

I just finished Dana Gioia's piece, "The Catholic Writer Today," in the December First Things. I am not a Catholic, but I am a Christian, and have thought some about the position of Christian poetry and fiction today. Gioia's piece is really very thorough, and his view is rather pessimistic. He argues that Catholic writers are generally ignored today, that they have a much smaller influence on American letters than in the past, and that there are, quite frankly, fewer of them--at least fewer "great" ones.

I guess I would agree, but I would also say, as I noted in Dreher's piece, that being on the margins of a culture can actually be quite invigorating, quite good for arts and letters, even if it is difficult for poets, novelists and artists. There is a freedom that comes with anonymity, an opportunity to take risks. And a lot of contemporary poetry and literary fiction being published today (not all) isn't in such good shape. A lot of it is boring and predictable. Many poets today are still imitating Ashbery and too many literary novels read like a hand-me-down White Noise. So I think this actually offers poets and novelists on the fringe an opportunity that may be closer than we think--who knows what great poets and novelists are alive right now, waiting in the wings. And in Gioia's piece, he hints at the opportunity that is there if writers will take the risk. It's time, he writes,"to leave the homogenous, characterless suburbs of the imagination and move back to the big city--where we can renovate these remarkable districts." Renovate, yes, but as a Protestant, I'd also add that sometimes new construction is the way to go. 

6. Speaking of O'Hara: he was the subject of your book, Frank O'Hara and the Poetics of Saying "I". How did you first become interested in his work? What keeps you interested in his biography and his writing?

I loved his poetry but didn't understand how it was really poetry. So I decided to figure it out. I also felt that the regular interpretations of his work as "painterly" or "deconstructive" were missing something. I was kind of burnt out on O'Hara after the book came out and am only now starting to look at his work again. 

7. Your Wall Street Journal and First Things pieces on cycling have convinced me to re-introduce that sport in my courses on athletics in literature and culture at Rutgers. I used to teach a piece on Armstrong from The New Yorker, but because disillusioned from his lies. Post-Armstrong, is there a way to salvage the beauty of the sport? What has drawn you to it?

I'm biased, but I'd say cycling is the most poetic sport--elegant, compact machinery that can produce such silent exhilaration. It's wonderful. I love watching the Tour because you have the exhilaration of competition (particularly at the end of the race) combined with beautiful views of the French countryside and little bits of history and culture recounted by the broadcasters (at least in the French broadcasts, which usually start around noon and end at five local time). Throw in some good food and good friends while you watch and it's a whole mind/body experience. 

Regarding Armstrong, cycling as a sport has always had a rather dark underbelly, plagued by drugs and corruption. In the first Tours some cyclists hired thugs to beat other riders up, threw nails and tacks on the road and so forth. And in the 70s cocaine (if I recall correctly) was one of the drugs of choice. So I'd say the Armstrong era was not so different from other eras, though he was certainly more organized than other cheaters and was presented as a sort of savior of the sport following the Festina affair.

You won't ever have a clean race, though I think the new blood passport system will help. One advantage of it is that doping riders can be taken care of in private, before they fail a drug test at a race. And I'd say it's the public nature of doping in cycling (because there is more than one governing body when it comes to drug tests) that sets it apart from other sports. I am sure there is just as much doping going on in the NFL. The difference is that we don't hear about it because it is dealt with internally or simply ignored.

8. "I am a devoted Presbyterian, but I’ll be the first to admit that a tree ruled by a plurality of elders is a messy thing. (It’s called a shrub.)" I loved "Confessions of a Protestant Christmas Tree Amateur" from First Things. I am sending these questions as the temperature dips, Thanksgiving is soon, and the farms here in NJ are preparing for visitors. I've noticed a pastoral hue to your personal writings (you make Gimel sound heavenly). Am I reading too much into this, or is this a theme of your writing, your life?

I love 19th and early 20th century Russian novels in part for the landscapes--they are always so meaningful. I think landscape is important to me first because I have had the great pleasure of living in a number of beautiful places. I was raised in Edmonds, Washington, which sits on Puget Sound; I lived for a while on the beach in Florida, six years in Switzerland, a couple of years looking out at the Thimble Islands in Connecticut and now the Appalachians in North Carolina. But it's also important to me because of my faith. I think the Psalmist was absolutely right when he wrote that "The heavens declare the glory of God." Of course, I don't always take the time receive this declaration, but I try.

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Micah Mattix is an assistant professor of writing and literature at Houston Baptist University and a senior contributor at The American Conservative. He writes regularly for The Wall Street Journal, The Weekly Standard, Books & Culture, First Things, and elsewhere. He has written a book on Frank O'Hara and is currently working on a book on metaphysics and poetry.