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The New Year of Yellow

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"Different poets possess different powers. So Lippman has eros and humor; somehow, also, he has a great, unfalsifiable affection for human nature. But his work is also empowered by verbal gusto, a faith in the joy of saying. . . . Full of exuberance and invention, flush with the stuff of struggle in the world, bright colored with mood, The New Year of Yellow is a defense of human nature. I believe in its animal instinct, its god-sanctioned, oxygen-breathing, self-evident inalienable right to pronounce."
—From the Foreward by Tony Hoagland

In The New Year of Yellow, Matthew Lippman gives voice to a bummed-out, pissed-off tender heart—¬a hopeless, cranky romantic “I” with love handles, a joint, and a penchant for blondes. Meet beloved Harvey Pekar crossed with the soul of Frank O’Hara, the great suburban middle-wage guy who, when no one is looking, abandons his anger and disappointment just long enough to reveal what’s really underneath—an irreverent affection for life.  

Winner of the 2005 Kathryn A. Morton Prize in Poetry, selected by Tony Hoagland, this debut writer has an adorable, old soul. With poems like “Everyone Wants a Monkey,” “It Is Time for Me to Start Making Love to Joni Mitchell,” and “Surf Buddha,” it’s not easy to know what to expect of Lippman, but one thing is for sure—you’re going to laugh. Out loud.

Matthew Lippman is a writer and a teacher. Currently he teaches English Literature and Creative Writing at Chatham High School in upstate New York, and has been a member of the faculty, Writing Division, in Columbia University's Summer Program for High School Students, as well as an instructor at The Gotham Writers' Workshop. In 1990 he received his MFA from the Writers' Workshop at the University of Iowa and in 1997 he was granted a Master’s in English Education from Teachers College, Columbia University. His poetry has been published widely in such journals as The American Poetry Review, The Iowa Review, The Best American Poetry of 1997, and Tikkun. In 1991 he was the recipient of the James Michener/Paul Engle Poetry Fellowship from the University of Iowa; in 2004 he won a New York State Foundation of the Arts grant for his fiction.



88 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2007

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About the author

Matthew Lippman

35 books15 followers
Matthew Lippman is the author of three poetry collections, AMERICAN CHEW, (Burnisde Review Press, 2013), which won the Burnside Review Book Prize, MONKEY BARS (Typecast Publishing) and THE NEW YEAR OF YELLOW (Sarabande Books), winner of the Kathryn A. Morton Poetry Prize. www.matthewlippman.com

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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
Profile Image for C.
1,754 reviews47 followers
August 21, 2008
A friend of mine told me to read this book while we were having a discussion of Nick Flynn's book, "Some Ether." He said that if I liked that I would definitely like this.

As I began reading it (and throughout), I thought my friend was crazy. This is nothing like Flynn.

Partially because of that discrepancy, I thought that I wasn't going to like the voice at all in the first few poems, but by the time I hit "Storming the Boardwalk" on page 24, I was hooked. Many pages were folded over, many lines were highlighted by the end of my time with this one.

It's such a refreshing voice... full of talent and, as someone has already said in their review here, honesty.

I also appreciated some of the bits regarding Long Island. I've been a bit nostalgic for my time there lately, and this was the right thing to read to frame my time there a little better.

It's not that there aren't misses here. I'm not as big a fan of all of the pieces about being a teacher, for instance. Overall, though, I am definitely a fan of this book. I can't wait to read more by this poet.
Profile Image for Richard.
19 reviews
August 6, 2007
It's refreshing to read a book of poems in which the only trick is honesty. I'd rather read poems about growing up and getting fat and daydreaming about blowing stuff up than most other poems that are published these days.
Profile Image for Sharon.
18 reviews2 followers
January 29, 2011
Lippman's still as brilliantly quirky as that time he through a banana at the blackboard in my High School. The poems ooze love, nostalgia, just the right amount of drug allusions, and all around good fun. I feel clean after finishing this book.
Profile Image for Rebby.
11 reviews
March 27, 2016
The poetry in this book is so real that I swear Matthew was just reciting it to me as I read it in my mind. The use of language, with ordinary slang and poetic descriptions kept me interested as the feelings changed per poem.
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