the hours

by matthew j. andrews

Drawing inspiration from monastic patterns of liturgical prayer and the book of Psalms, The Hours is a deeply personal collection that meditates on the breadth of the human experience: the splendor of sunrise, the trepidation of evening, and the long periods of darkness and light that fall between them. With feet planted firmly on the ground but eyes raised skyward, these poems explore the transcendent and the ordinary, the sacred and the profane, and find at the core of everything a “body bent at each clanging bell.”

praise for the hours

Through his debut full-length collection The Hours, Matthew J. Andrews unflinchingly explores aspects of God and a faithful life that are painful, weighty, and even violent. Andrews’ imaginative—but not sentimental!—gaze shows us Christ’s body “chopped like onions” through the Eucharist; the angel Gabriel’s feathered wings as “a train of candles / settled in a prolonged burn”; and King David’s desperation for God to speak in “a tone that is not thunder, / in a voice that is not rain.” These poems and the elusive God they seek to meet (or sometimes avoid) have a satisfying sting to them. The Hours does not dismiss or denigrate the biblical stories it references or their God, but instead unveils the complex realities of these inspirations and of our own day-to-day lives. The Hours is rich, varied, and honest reading that taps into our core spiritual impulse “to be dwarfed and expanded / all at once”—embracing us when we are left in longing and even in those rare, glimmering moments where the Divine does seem to break through our mundanity and toil. I loved it!

—MEGAN MCDERMOTT, author of Jesus Merch: A Catalog in Poems (Fernwood Press) and Woman as Communion (Game Over Books)

Matthew J. Andrews’ The Hours is a collection elucidating our attempts to hear a still, small voice in birdsong and thunder, to seek what can be found in ecstasy and the quotidian, to grasp the hem of a garment we know is just within reach. Andrews’ images are incarnated—words becoming the flesh and blood we recognize as our own—teaching us “some things stick / around. Some things don’t wash so easy.” These poems call us to see and be seen as we truly are, call us to examine the lies we tell ourselves about the truths we know in our hearts, call us to consider all that could be, that is “holy, holy, holy.”

—MATTHEW E. HENRY, author of The Third Renunciation

Matthew J. Andrews reminds me that poetry is the language of mystery, at once able and unable to grasp more than we can imagine. In these poems, Andrews faces God and creation from all angles—praise, rage, awe, grief. The Hours holds faith and questions loosely and beautifully, allowing new revelations with each reading. And trust me, you'll want to reread these poems.

—WHITNEY RIO-ROSS, author of Birthmarks and poetry editor of Fare Forward

Poetry is always worship. What makes Andrews unusual in our generation is his setting aside of idols and reaching out for God directly. And the great surprise is that He is right there. He is right there. And that is what this collection offers.

—THERIC JEPSON, editor of Quatrain.Fish and Irreantum

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