Love gets Recharged this Valentine's Day via the Writing of a Chicago Poet

CHICAGO - Jan. 25, 2018 - PRLog -- Contact: Matthew A. McDermott
Tel# 872-235-9340
Email: chicagocityarts@gmail.com
Website: medium.com/@matthewmcdermott

Dreaming of Cathedrals
Poems by Matthew A. McDermott
Available on Amazon
[Paperback] 34 pages, $5.95/Kindle Edition: $2.99
ISBN-13: 978-1549739651
ISBN-10: 1549739654

Love gets Recharged this Valentine's Day via the Writing of Chicago Poet, Matthew A. McDermott

CHICAGO, January 25, 2018: There's a new voice calling in the ethereal wilderness of love poetry (a tricky terrain for most poets if they are to avoid drowning the reader in glutinous bathos).

In his recently published work, Dreaming of Cathedrals, Chicago poet, Matthew A. McDermott avoids such dark pools while skillfully navigating the soul's topography of romantic hunger in all its messy manifestations.  In this slim but satisfyingly rich volume of poems, he considers love from the first meeting through to its existence only in memory. His exploration of lyricism in romantic poetry is linked to music and 20th century lyrics, as well as to such poets as Seamus Heaney, Anna Akhmatova and Umberto Saba.

"The goal of the poet should be to convert words into musical notes," says Matthew, "For all of today's creatives, the expressive power of music is the model to follow. Intention and communication define my aesthetic focus. I don't intend for my poems to sit like mazes waiting for the select few to come solve them. I want to communicate human meanings to as many people as do me the honor of reading my poems."

Matthew writes with raw honesty and searing insights.  His clean-cut vision delivers lines that mirror the raw contradictions and deviations of love, drawing the reader into direct experience.  This writer does more than wear his heart on his sleeve, but rather raises it up to us with both hands: pulsing, aching, and sometimes bleeding but always open to furthering the emotional horizon where often too soon, as his words declare, he sees the object of his passion disappear.

"Romantic love has been an ineffable experience throughout human history", Matthew comments. "In capturing a characteristic moment of feeling, the poet can shed more light on this universal struggle than a thousand philosophical discourses. And the same can be said for the songwriter."

As Leonard Cohen once sang, "There Ain't No Cure for Love", and Matthew's poetry drives the point home keenly.  His writing has an acoustical resonance, a balladic power that gives his phrasing a musical texture.  One could easily sing his poems walking down the street or whisper them into the ears of a lover resting on the pillow beside you.

Matthew believes that, "Poetry allows me to say in a condensed form what would take hours in conversation, or not be expressed at all."

Among the roses and the chocolates showered on sweethearts this Valentine's Day, one might consider including a copy of Dreaming of Cathedrals, to remind us that love is never perfect, but its bright fires and transforming energies make a glorious blaze—always.

About Matthew A. McDermott

Matthew McDermott is an Irish American writer raised in Chicago and Boston and educated in Vermont, Ireland and England.  He comes from a long-line of admirers of the spoken and written word.

After early attempts to be a jazz drummer and an art historian, Matthew settled in suburban Chicago where he works on projects in both poetry and prose. He is currently completing a collection of poems titled: "To Rise Up: Meditations on Regicide," which addresses the widespread feeling of futility that many Americans are experiencing in today's volatile political environment.

Discover more of his writing at: https://medium.com/@matthewmcdermott


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