Violence and tenderness coexist uneasily—as
well they should—in Rob Griffith’s marvelous
book. A housewife watches an airman fall from the sky,
a bankrupt minister kills himself, a pair of woozy lovers
find a bleak moment of truth in the back seat of a rusty
Monte Carlo—these are the vignettes from lives hanging
in the balance artfully depicted in A Matinee in Plato’s
Cave. Maneuvering deftly through such demanding forms
as the villanelle, rondeau, and sonnet, Griffith has produced
a debut volume to remember.
—R.S. Gwynn
Drenched in place like James Dickey, and writing with
the grace of Phillip Larkin, Rob Griffith has produced
a moving and original book. These poems are wise in the
ways of the world. They present, with subtlety and suppleness,
the situations in which we learn and relearn what it means
to be human. Every reader will give A Matinee in Plato's
Cave two big thumbs up.
—Beth Ann Fennelly
A Matinee in Plato’s Cave weaves biography,
history, music and legend into poems that teach us how
to leave "dreaming and face the world." Juxtaposing
poems about death with those about love, about life, Griffith
allows us to enter other lives through an abundance of
sensual detail. With subjects as varied as Livia lacquering
figs with poison to kill Caesar, or running over frogs
in Arkansas, Griffith uses words to "sluice the body
down to bone." Knowing that the world will not be
tamed, this impressive collection stays centered on human
experience. Rob Griffith’s compelling poems cleave
the heart and then teach it how to heal.
—Vivian Shipley
Rob Griffith's poems have the marvelous quality of belonging
comfortably to our day and at the same time to the priceless
past. Reading them, one could be listening to a story
or a confession in a bar room, hearing almost accidental
pattern and rhyme that enrich the telling without suggesting
the classroom. Yes.
