Destruction Myth poems by Mathias Svalina To read a "Creation Myth" on Poetry Daily, click here. “In the beginning, everyone looked like Larry Bird. In the beginning, there was a rotting pig corpse. Everyone wanted to fight to the death. There was a hole in the basement floor. And a bunny with a broken leg. There were ghosts. Evildoers. A gun. Bacon. Cologne. A pencil. In these inventive, often deeply unnerving poems, Mathias Svalina offers us a string of forty-four creation myths and one longer, unsettling destruction myth. The result is a sonically complex, breathtakingly witty book, a collection of poems that surprises first with its wildly orchestrated clamor of narratives then, on reflection, surprises all over again with its intelligence and insight into the many ways we tell stories, the many means by which we imagine ourselves participating in them. This is an ambitious, brilliant first book.”  —Kevin Prufer   List price: $15.95

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Here are links to reviews for Destruction Myth by Mathias Svalina

http://www.spdbooks.org/Producte/9781880834879/destruction-myth.aspx

Phil Estes in New Letters - http://www.newletters.org/PDFs/76.3/Estes-Mathias%20Review.pdf

Justin Taylor on HTML Giant: http://htmlgiant.com/author-spotlight/giant-review-mathias-svalinas-destruction-myth/

Dennis Etzel Jr. at Gently Read Literature

Charles Jensen in The Collagist

In Small Press Reviews: http://smallpressreviews.wordpress.com/2010/04/27/destruction-myth/

Jay Robinson in Pinstripes Inc.

Eileen Tabios at Galatea Resurrects

Collin Schuster in 360 Main Street

This is the link to Mathias's poem on Verse Daily, http://poems.com/poem.php?date=14582

Seven poets interview Mathias Svalilna in Sharkforum: www.sharkforum.org/2010/05/interview-with-mathias-svalina.html

Mathias's blog: http://mathiassvalina.blogspot.com/

Review on NewPages Book Reviews by Noel Sloboda
http://www.newpages.com/bookreviews/2010-08/index.htm#Destruction-Myth-by-Mathias-Svalina

Review on HTML Giant by Justin Taylor http://htmlgiant.com/author-spotlight/giant-review-mathias-svalinas-destruction-myth/

Review on Collagist by Charles Jensen http://thecollagist.com/archive/April2010/Jensen/index.html

Review on Gently Read Literature by Dennis Etzel Jr.
http://gentlyread.wordpress.com/2010/04/01/in-the-beginning-there-was-mathias-svalina-dennis-etzel-jr-on-mathias-svalinas-destruction-myth/

Review on 360 Main Street by Colin Schuster http://360mainstreet.com/article/487/destruction-myth-by-mathias-svalina

 An interview on Sharkforum http://www.sharkforum.org/2010/05/interview-with-mathias-svalina.html

Small Press Reviews http://smallpressreviews.wordpress.com/2010/04/27/destruction-myth/

galatea resurrects http://galatearesurrection14.blogspot.com/2010/04/destruction-myth-and-creation-myths-by.html

Blog: Pinstripesinc.blogspot.com 

Review by Jay Robinson http://pinstripesinc.blogspot.com/search?q=svalina

Link to: mathiassvalina.blogspot.com

Front Porch Journal

Black Bird Review

360 Main Street Review

 

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Creation Myth

In the beginning everyone looked like Larry Bird
but everyone did not have the name Larry Bird
& this was confusing. Everyone had a headache
& walked around with furrowed brows. Headaches
hadn’t been invented & when people described the pain
they said an angry Larry Bird stands on my neck
& my head is Larry Bird after missing a layup.
Even the babies were the size & shape of Larry Bird.
Since everyone looked like Larry Bird they avoided
extravagant events. All the clubs shut down, no one
could watch a Larry Bird dance without understanding
that they danced like this, pursed lips, flagellum legs,
arms like wild fire hoses. The real Larry Bird retired
to his basement. He wore magnifying goggles
& built watches of smaller & smaller dimension.
He built watches so small that he needed a microscope
to affix the springs & levers in the right places.
He built watches so small that he called them cells.
He built watches so small that he called them atoms.

 

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Expanding the palette of contemporary surrealism while harkening back to the stories and prayers at the origin of poetry, Destruction Myth is a series of absurdist myths of creation and destruction, that are at times both inventively silly and surprisingly emotionally direct. This book attempts the world again and again, only to find that even the most ridiculous of creations contains the seeds of its own destruction.

“If I feel physically as if the top of my head is taken off and replaced with a soft serve ice cream machine, I am pretty sure it is poetry. Svalina’s book does no less, and also so much more. Read but also believe this book of fantastic lies. It’s like how you see a cat sitting there and you think ‘that is just a cat’ and then you realize that cat is God. Mathias Svalina has reinvented Yahweh as an Animorph. When this book is taught in college classrooms, students will curl up on the air conditioning vents and ask for salt.”
— Anne Boyer

“Inspired, concise, often macabre yet always joyful, these creation myths are filled with a thousand odd, jagged miracles. A truly exhilarating read. Bravo!”
— Linh Dinh

“In the beginning, we were children and we had beautiful imaginations, but we had no home for them. Then up sprouted Mathias Svalina’s Destruction Myth and we did. It too was beautiful, bloody, silly, haunted. At first we thought it was godly, and then we discovered it was human. We feared it; we loved it; we slept with it under our pillows.”
— Eleni Sikelianos

Mathias Svalina was born in Chicago, where his parents were both chemists. He is the author of five chapbooks as well as five collaboratively written chapbooks. His work has been published widely in journals such as American Letters & Commentary, The Boston Review, Diagram, jubilat, and Typo. He has won fellowships and awards from The Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, The Iowa Review and New Michigan Press among other places. With Zachary Schomburg, he co-edits Octopus Magazine and Octopus Books. He currently teaches writing and literature in Denver, Colorado. Destruction Myth is his first book.

Ordering Information: For a full list of titles, please visit www.csuohio.edu/poetrycenter. Books are available through SPD (Small Press Distribution) at www.spdbooks.org, Amazon.com, and BarnesAndNoble.com as well as many corporate and independent bookstores. For media review copies and printed catalogs, contact Rita Grabowski at 888-278-6473, or 216-687-3986.