Matthew Nienow lives in Port Townsend, Washington with his wife and two sons. Professionally trained as a wooden boatbuilder, he spent over a decade building small boats and custom wooden paddle boards. He is the author of House of Water (Alice James, 2016) and three earlier chapbooks. His poems have appeared in The Georgia Review, New England Review, and Poetry, which awarded him a 2013 Ruth Lilly Poetry Fellowship. He has also received fellowships, grants, and support from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Elizabeth George Foundation, Artist Trust of Washington State, the Bread Loaf Writers' Conference, and 4Culture of Seattle.

He holds a BA in English from St. Olaf College, an MFA in Poetry from the University of Washington, and an Associate degree in Traditional Small Craft from the Northwest School of Wooden Boatbuilding. He is pursuing a Masters in Mental Health Counseling, working on several new manuscripts, and serving on the Editorial Board of Alice James Books.

Featured by Poets and Writers' "Page One"

"Matthew Nienow's poetry collection If Nothing is a vivid exploration of addiction and sobriety, marriage and fatherhood. The book is in part about what it means to be good and how we balance cultural expectations of goodness with our personal values. But it's also about taking accountability when we fail to be good--how, in the process, we can find and give grace and forgiveness."
--Charlotte Fleming, The Rumpus

IF NOTHING, by Matthew Nienow. (Alice James Books, paperback, $24.95.) 'This world expects a man/to prove that he exists, ' Nienow writes in his second collection, a meditation on masculinity that grapples with alcoholism, recovery and the deep yearning for forgiveness. 'I didn't know how to be/a friend or father, ' one speaker admits."
--New York Times Book Review

"Don't start Matthew Nienow's new collection, If Nothing unless you can finish it. These poems, just as captivating as they are devastating, begin in a dark place. With lines strafed with self-reproach, Nienow wrestles with addiction, suicidal depression, and the agony of wanting to be a better father. ... This is an arduous journey very much worth taking."
--Ron Charles, Washington Post Book Club

"Unflinching and tender, this volume affirms Nienow's distinctive poetic gifts."
--Publisher's Weekly, Starred Review

"If Nothing by Matthew Nienow (Jan., Alice James) is driven by hunger: toward sleep, for relief, to return to the past. This second collection feels as sturdy as it does stimulating. Counting sobriety, measuring parenthood, and recalling losses, though at the heart of the book a new world comes from the responsibility of the self: "I was inside with no story / to save me from myself."
--Poetry Northwest

"Matthew Nienow shows us in If Nothing that he is a poet of birth, of making and making anew. He writes, 'All the second chances, what did they teach me, if not to dream more wildly toward a kingdom in which the king was not so cruel?' and then he shows us the stutter step restarting of love after malice, tenderness after neglect. This is powerful medicine, salve for earnest souls in an era of ethical infantilization. There is grace here, real grace made wise by having known real grief; If Nothing is a lasting book."
--Kaveh Akbar

"'Love is showing up so fully it hurts, ' Matthew Nienow writes, and indeed he shows up here in full. These are poems of startling vulnerability, poems of addiction and despair and the wake they carve through a marriage, through fatherhood, through a self. But the thing about a wake is that the water comes back together, however changed. If Nothing doesn't bare loss gratuitously. No, it sees--it sings--loss through to its many lessons. This book makes work of loss, and anyone who reads this poet will come to recognize that work and love go hand in hand."
--Corey Van Landingham

"'I walked straight into the fire and took my place amongst the ash, ' writes Matthew Nienow. The result is If Nothing, a bracing collection that digs into the ashes of addiction, marriage, and fatherhood to discover what the tree knows under the carpenter's chisel, that loss can also be abundance."
--Tomás Q. Morin

"'If you can live with loss, the soul grows bright, ' Matthew Nienow writes in this clear-eyed and resonant book. His voice never wavers. Addiction and mental health and shame are rendered in searingly alive language. His vulnerability is radical listening--to masculinity, to loneliness, to family, to betrayal. In these deftly crafted poems, loss shines bright, but grace shines brighter."
--Eduardo C. Corral

Publisher: Alice James Books

Pub date: 2025-01-14

Length: 100 pages