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Amazon Book Description

«The Residents» is Matthew Friday’s first book of poetry. It begins with the author’s arrival at the height of the COVID pandemic and explores his new life as a US resident. The poems reflect on this new journey and study what being a resident means for other people, flora and fauna of the Pacific Northwest. While Oregon’s inhabitants and landscape form the basis of many poems, others explore residency in a wider sense, crossing borders near and far away. Subjects range from barbers to hummingbirds, immigration headaches to territorial hawks, children splashing in puddles to bread-making with a father-in-law. Anyone who loves poetry that is concise yet descriptive, rich in images but with accessible language will want to read this book.

Excerpt from «The Residents»

Against the Current

The red tailed hawk flies a tugged line
over the pines that rig the riverside,
along a taste of cracked toffee rocks.

Oddly slow, the hawk, as if fighting a tide.
Puppet wings but the strings are invisible.
Behind the river groans. There’s a plan

to build 250 homes against the cliffs,
trees to be cleared, paths suffocated,
the hawk’s clawed opinions ignored.


Empire Barber

A travel tradition: 
a haircut to honor the new place.
We still talk about how bad
the cut was in Reykjavik.

Passing through Coos Bay, OR,
my hair long and visibly gray,
we see ‘Empire Barbers.’
My always-right wife insists.

Muffled by mask, my barber 
is from northern Vietnam.
19 years in the US. Regularly returns 
home, well, that was pre-COVID.
So very hot and humid in the summer.

We swap stories about living in south China.
Guangzhou - the factory of the world.
He knows all about that. People take 
cheap stuff back to sell in Vietnam.

Has a sister in Germany. 
Our old home, Dresden. 
Florence of the Elbe. Dresden?
Been three times.  You lived there?
Stops razoring often to guffaw in amazement.

He follows Man City football club
from Vietnam to Oregon.
We briefly watch a World Cup qualifier.
England beating San Marina 4-0.

I leave with better hair
and an improved soul,
my wife smiling like a Buddha.


The Pumpkin Field

Being just a poor British boy grown
where London’s roots defile Saxon towns,
common woods and meadows, I know little
about agriculture beyond the shelves
and tin cans of childhood. So when I see

the field of pumpkins on the edge of I-5 North
the bulbous fruit strung out like orange pearls
in finely tuned rows, small hard heads lolled
on the dry soil, I am amazed. That so much 
can be gained from these ignorant seeds.

© Matthew Friday

Praise for «The Residents»

“We have been honored to publish Matthew Friday’s poetry. So I am delighted to celebrate this chapbook of his poems—rich in imagery, voice, and a delightful playfulness with language. The poems connect the conscious mind with the heart (what Mary Oliver says poetry can do).

–Kimberly Hill Campbell, Editor of Oregon English Journal

«The Residents challenges me to look into the world and to realize that I’m connected to it. With depth and weight, Friday’s lyrics exalt the ordinary natural world into something I can grapple and hum with. The Residents is a subtle hurricane of poems that illuminate the mysteries and paradoxes we all might experience while getting a haircut or visiting a pumpkin field, wondering why. Friday writes from a place high above, encompassing all that the land has to offer, yet not so high that he misses pumpkin seeds, hummingbirds, and Easter eggs. These poems are offerings my soul gladly accepts. In The Residents, Friday brings the reader through a glorious expedition of the natural world and that which transcends it. His poems paint lucid images of the natural, while inviting the reader to contemplate the unknown. These poems are a call for awareness in a world that might be too sleepy to wake up. I’ve been a reader of Matthew’s poetry for years, and this collection is his best yet.

–Mike Leyland, School Library Media coordinator, Craven County Schools.

Matthew’s collection of poetry, «The Residents», connects the reader with the beauty and power of the natural world, the strangeness of modern life and our alternately sweet or disconnected fellow human beings. He writes with empathy and self-awareness of all he encounters, finding poetic elements in the smallest gestures and actions, as well as the ancient forces of the planet that will outlast us and our temporary dramas. Desperate migrants, unfair privilege, flying birds, rushing water, random hardship, bureaucratic paperwork, a child’ s joy in jumping in puddles, unexpected connections between people from different parts of the world—all combine to capture the imagination and stimulate recognition of our shared humanity. Classical literary and mythological references flow through the observations of physics and earth science juxtaposed with human actions, both positive and negative, that in the end are only momentary. Above all, Matthew’s words capture fleeting moments that make life more beautiful in the midst of our current world.

–Vivienne Blake, Librarian, EF Academy New York

«The Residents» can be purchased on Finishing Line Press’ website HERE. It’s also available on Amazon.

Paperback

Author Biography

Matthew James Friday is a British-born writer and teacher. He has had many poems published in US and international journals. His first chapbook «The Residents» was published by Finishing Line Press (2024). His second chapbook «The Be-All and the End-All» was published by Bottlecap Press (2024). His first full length collection «Wunderkammer» is due to be published by Kelsay Books (2026). He has published numerous micro-chapbooks with the Origami Poems Project. Matthew is a Pushcart Prize nominated poet. Visit his website at http://matthewfriday.weebly.com