Phoenix, AZ, April 13, 2008 --- This week’s publication of an epic poem titled Marshmallow was prophetic. The content of this work mirrors our world today in the turbulence of war, indebtedness and social confusion. From the sinking dollar to the collapse of Wall Street giants to the resurgence of violence in Iraq, the themes of this poem reflect our civilization in desperation and distortion.
Using the name of a famous candy to title an epic poem at first appears a contradiction even for poetry. Yet it completely satisfies the bizarre logic of our times. Everything is innocent yet absolutely devoid of substance or force and everyone has been made a marshmallow by their own choices. This is the warning.
Written by twenty-nine year old poet Matthew Kolomaya, the piece documents and comments on such varied themes as America’s ever increasing use of pharmaceuticals to personal mummification by excessive soda and fast food consumption. Other themes included the total perversion of religious sites into post-card stands such as Notre-Dame de Paris and the highly metaphysical nature of a subway.
Began in Paris and completed in Phoenix, Marshmallow does not scream like mass media to perceive our society. This work is patient and persistent like a locomotive. The reader is propelled by detonations of imagery into civilization and simultaneously into themselves to face not only their own unconscious but the united unconscious of America and humanity.
Published by Perceptions From Nowhere, Marshmallow records these days in America and
the world in the first decade of a new century. Page after page drags the reader towards typically denied conclusions. Yet these themes remind everyone that humanity is fighting not only for its survival but for its soul in a neon new world order.
About Matthew Kolomaya:
Matthew is a full time poet living in Phoenix Arizona and Marshmallow is his first work in a planned series of epic poems documenting America. He is the face of the black and white front cover of Marshmallow as a personification of America’s Me Generation and the last eight years of black or white morality in the United States. Matthew’s unique last name is derived from the predominantly Jewish Eastern European city of Kolomaya that was devastated during the Holocaust.
About Perceptions From Nowhere:
PFN is a young and ambitious publishing house co-founded by Travis Davis and Tim Scahill. Both natives of Lincoln, Nebraska they intend to re-invent poetry in America by publishing avant-garde writers that would be typically overlooked but the more traditional publishers.
