?What was there to do but to play music?? Thus begins the first and title poem of Matthew Gwathmey's Family Band. What follows describes becoming a family of seven (?It Seemed That We Had Hardly Begun And We Were Already There?), complete with made-up bedtime stories (?Bear The Bear?), the learning of language (?A High Frequency Words List?), road trips (?Stargazing?), pastimes like gardening (?Different Kinds Of Blight?) and fishing (?Salmon Fishing?), games (?Hide & Seek?), TV shows (?Closed Captions Of Sweet Tooth, Season 1, Episode 6?), more games (?The Impossible Game?), and the joys of home ownership (?This House?). These poems catalogue family life up until the moment that the band decides to break apart, and everyone chooses to pursue their respective solo careers.

Matthew Gwathmey

was born in Richmond, Virginia and studied creative writing at the University of Virginia. His poems have appeared in Grain, Crazyhorse, Prairie Fire, The Iowa Review, and other literary magazines. He became a Canadian citizen in 2013 and lives with his wife and children in Fredericton, New Brunswick, where he is a PhD student at UNB. He also works at The Learning Bar on Confident Learners, an Indigenous literacy program. Our Latest in Folktales is his first book.

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