Poetry Books
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What People Say About Jackie Robnson's Real Gone: Basebll Poems of New York
Matthew Johnson has given us an amazing collection of poems filled with history and memory. While his work acknowledges the great players of the Negro Baseball Leagues, this book also explores the theme of aging. What happens when the “gift” begins to fail. What happens when God refuses to promise us extra innings? Johnson has given us a baseball book that understands and plays the blues
— E. Ethelbert Miller, Author of If God Invented Baseball: Poems
My heart thumps a bit quicker when entering a baseball stadium for a ballgame, an anticipation I also feel from the first words of Matthew Johnson’s new poetry collection, Jackie Robinson’s Real Gone: Baseball Poems of New York. As a ballgame connects us indelibly to the ghosts of the past, while simultaneously alerting us of the possibilities of the present and future, so also does Matthew Johnson’s poetry, taking us on a sweeping tour of New York baseball... masterfully revealing stories of the game that take us not only to Jackie Robinson dancing off third, but also far over the centerfield wall in the farthest reaches of the old Polo Grounds, out of the ballpark completely, beyond baseball itself.
— Loren Broaddus, author of Joe DiMaggio Moves Like Liquid Light
Publisher: Cornerstone Press
Presale Date: May 2026
Publication Date: (Sept. 2026)
Language: English
Paperback: 90 pages
ISBN-13: 978-1-968148-66-9
What People Say About Too Short to Box with God
Too Short to Box with God affirms that boxing is more than sport. Matthew Johnson’s poignant collection shows the grace and grit of pugilists never at rest, men whose punches echo history, injustice, racism, and even redemption. Boxing legends move through these poems. But the poet “watches it all,” sometimes from the safety of a ringside seat, sometimes closer to the damage on canvas, making meaning of fighters and fights, hitting notes that reverberate beneath and beyond the pain.
— Adam Berlin, Author of the Standing Eight
A remarkable, talented young poet committed to sport literature, Matthew Johnson fires fast verse combinations, in Too Short to Box with God, that Muhammad Ali would have loved. Johnson is a scholar of boxing, glories and tragedies… the blindness of greats. There is the abject sadness of KO’d Sonny Liston with Ali over him, screaming, Get up, sucker. And Johnson throws poetic jabs ‘n hooks in celebration of the immortal Jack Johnson… Galveston goliath. With Too Short to Box with God, Matthew Johnson presents himself as a champ of boxing poetry.
— Red Shuttleworth, author of Eclipse of the Sun: Boxing Poems
Publisher: Finishing Line Press (Nov. 8, 2024)
Language: English
Paperback: 36 pages
ISBN-13: 979-8888386521
What People Say About Far from New York State
Matthew Johnson offers a rich tapestry of stories drawn from the lives of historical figures, professional athletes, musicians, and more, to address divisions, struggles, triumphs, and realities. He writes, "the long cool is whittled down to the essentials of the essentials," carving out an image of America in all its smooth and sharp edges. His language moves from direct to musical, narrative to lyric, in a style that interrogates as it engages and invites.
— Grant Clauser, author of Muddy Dragon on the Road to Heaven
With its brilliant homages to Nas and Red Foxx, Matthew Johnson's Far from New York State creates a true jazz story, a collage, or a jigsaw puzzle—it's full of play and worthy of being read…Johnson opens up a space and lets the poems tell their own story.
— Rochelle Spencer, author of AfroSurrealism: The African Diaspora's Surrealist Fiction
Publisher: New York Quarterly Press (March 1, 2023)
Language: English
Paperback: 80 pages
ISBN-10: 1630450952
ISBN-13: 978-1630450953
Publisher: Kelsay Books (June 29, 2019)
Language: English
Paperback: 71 pages
ISBN-10: 1949229998
ISBN-13: 978-1949229998
What People Say About Shadow Folk and Soul Songs
Shadow Folk and Soul Songs offers an imaginative universe populated by the common man, looming historical figures, and contemporary interrogations of self and nation. From Phillis Wheatley to Sojourner Truth, Langston Hughes to Hip Hop, these poems traverse deep time and the soul and song of America. The lyric expressions "stir like thunder in the soul."
— Dr. Noelle Morrissette, author of James Weldon Johnson's Modern Soundscapes
The poems of Matthew Johnson’s remarkable first book are vibrant, restless and yes, provocative. Their language deftly calls forth rich cultural perspectives of today and days gone by. From Sinatra to Paul Laurence Dunbar, from Charlie Parker to the Jim Crow South, Shadow Folk and Soul Songs cast a thoughtful net. This impressive bounty is both timely and urgent in addressing the seasons of our lives.
— Larry Moffi, founder and publisher of Settlement House and author of Crossing the Line: Black Major Leaguers, 1947-1959