Looking for Matthew

In this small book of seventeen lyric and narrative poems the author chronicles the grief he experienced following the shooting death of Matthew Solomon, September 4, 2008 on the streets of San Francisco. Starting with Day 2 and going through Day 78 of the third year, Denham’s poems capture not only the small details of particular experiences and the poignant, wrenching internal states of grief but also the profound learning that always accompanies those states. In this, the poems go beyond the individual and call our attention to the thousands of young people who lose their lives to street violence in our cities.

“You show how someone not on the streets, someone not blood-family, someone not ‘homie,’ can be so deeply affected by the death of a young man the world often ignores.” —Judith Tannenbaum, author of Disguised as a Poem: My Years Teaching Poetry at San Quentin & By Heart: Poetry, Prison, and Two Lives (with Spoon Jackson)

“So, you are writing for thousands who cannot write, as well as for thousands who have died, and millions more in categories untold.” —Mary Laird, Owner, Quelquefois Press, Berkeley, California

“I have finished reading yet again, Looking for Matthew. I read each poem carefully, recited each aloud. I am again struck with their magnificence (I do not use that word lightly).” —Hari Meyers, raconteur/author/scholar of Word Myths