Poet Airea D. Matthews on ‘Simulacra,’ Midwest Literary Walk

Matthews explores the ideas of want and desire and how these feelings seem to be embedded within us.

Jake Neher/WDET

The Midwest Literary Walk is in Chelsea this weekend. It is a day featuring readings and discussion with a group of authors and poets many of whom have appeared on Detroit Today. Airea D. Matthews is one of the featured poets this year. She is a writer from Detroit whose own reading of her work will move something innate and human within you. 

Her book of poetry “Simulacra” takes the reader on an intimate journey of internal desire — desire of the tangible and intangible. 

Matthews joins WDET’s Laura Weber Davis on Detroit Today to discuss the themes of her work. 

She explores the ideas of want and desire and how these feelings seem to be embedded within us.

“I think it’s a broad want,” Matthews says. “I think it’s kinda that inescapable, ever-present want. And it’s not necessarily easily pin-pointed, right? So you can be at any point in your life when you feel like you have some form of emptiness.”

Matthews reads her piece If My Late Grandmother Were Gertrude Stein and describes her inspiration for writing it. 

Click on the audio player above to hear the full conversation. 

Jake Neher/WDET

 

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