Meet Matthew Nolan, Poet and Resident of New Orleans
Posted: May 09, 2011Matthew Nolan, who subtitles his books "A New Orleans Poet," is the author of two collections of poetry and prose: Crumpled Paper Dolls (2004) and Exhuming Juliet (2009). Nolan, who lives and writes in New Orleans, was born in 1973 the youngest of five children and spent most of his childhood in Springfield, Missouri. When his family moved to North Alabama, Nolan enrolled in EMT school at the University of Alabama in Huntsville, but his heart belonged to literature and art. He wanted to write and he wanted to act. Calhoun Community College in Decatur, AL, offered him that very opportunity. At Calhoun he so excelled in academics that he was selected to represent Calhoun on the USA Today All-USA Academic Team.
After his graduation from Calhoun, Nolan found yet another safe haven and continued encouragment for his writing talent at Athens State University. Nolan said that Athens State had a "old spirit" and that he felt that it was "a bit like New Orleans." After he recieved his bachelor's degree, Nolan headed for that mecca of art and theatre: New York City. However, NYC proved a fickle mistress. In search of some place that he could call home, Nolan took a train to New Orleans, LA, in 2003.
During his peregrinations, Nolan had been keeping a journal and continuing to write poetry. In 2004, shortly after he arrived in New Orleans, he printed 100 copies of his poems and prose, loaded the books into the basket of his bicycle, and sold them in the French Quarter. Two months prior to Hurricane Katrina, Nolan's first volume was picked up by the bookstore chain Barnes and Noble, and he found his book, Crumpled Paper Dolls, displayed on the shelf between Pablo Neruda and Sylvia Plath. He felt he had arrived. Then Katrina struck.
Nolan's second volume of poetry and prose, Exhuming Juliet, was published in 2009. Meanwhile, Nolan was gaining national recognition. Road Trip Nation, a PBS documentary, featured Nolan in its seventh season, he was interviewed by the BBC, and also featured in a, as yet unreleased, documentary film entitled State of Poem.
A wanderer for much of his life, Matthew now resides in New Orleans. He recently moved Uptown from Magazine Street which is fondly known as the "Street of Dreams."
Swampland is pleased to present a review of Nolan's two volumes, Crumpled Paper Dolls and Exhuming Juliet and four of his poems: Four Poems by Matthew Nolan.
----Penne J. Laubenthal
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