Matthew Nisinson
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mnisinson.bsky.social
Matthew Nisinson
@mnisinson.bsky.social
400 followers 710 following 420 posts
(He/him) poet/bureaucrat with poems out in Bullshit Lit, en*gendered lit, Los Angeles Review, Novus Literary, Southern Humanities Review, and others. Currently working on a deep dive project focused on Catullus 85.

On Instagram as lepidum_novum_libellum
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mnisinson.bsky.social
My wife surprised me with a copy of @aestallings.bsky.social translation of The Battle between the Frogs and the Mice, a perfect gift. Stallings’ translation flows wonderfully. I love the persona of the scholar A. Nony Mouse. Grant Silverstein’s illustrations make a fantastic addition to the poem.
A book on a gray sofa and orange fox pillow next to a napping white and black cat. The book is The BATTLE between the FROGS and the MICE - A TINY HOMERIC EPIC: A New Translation by A. E. STALLINGS Illustrations by GRANT SILVERSTEIN
July 26, 2025 at 2:15 PM
mnisinson.bsky.social
Who else is at NYC Poetry Festival today?
Selfie of Matthew Nisinson in a pink t-shirt under a blue and white striped shirt
July 13, 2025 at 2:03 PM
mnisinson.bsky.social
My appreciation for Japan’s role in Asia before WW2 has deepened further after reading Yi Sang’s Selected Works, and the wonderful translator’s note by Don Mee Choi comparing her experience with English as colonial language to her father’s with Japanese as colonial language.
Book on a wood table. The book is Yi Sang: Selected Works
June 22, 2025 at 3:07 PM
mnisinson.bsky.social
I found this book about 10 years ago, Travels in Manchuria and Mongolia: a feminist poet from Japan encounters prewar China by Yosano Akiko, translated by Joshua A. Fogel. Been thinking about it a lot recently, and looking for more on Akiko’s role as propagandist, suggestions welcome!
Travels in Manchura and Mongolia: a feminist poet from Japan encounters prewar China by Yosano Akiko, translated by Joshua A. Fogel
June 22, 2025 at 2:59 PM
mnisinson.bsky.social
Very excited to find my contributor copy of @haydensferryreview.bsky.social in my mailbox this evening! Two of my Catullus 85 translations found a great home in HFR’s Maximalism Folio. I can’t wait for folks to read them!

#ancientbluesky
White and black cat and Hayden’s Ferry Review Issue 76 on a buffalo plaid blanket Page showing HFR’s Maximalism Folio, including Translator’s Note and 2 Translations of Catullus 85 by Matthew Nisinson, titled “Catullus on his 85th birthday” and “[I do and don’t]”
April 28, 2025 at 11:36 PM
mnisinson.bsky.social
Tired Sunday and I’m reading Paul Celan: Selected Works edited by Pierre Joris. This one, Psalm, struck me quite intensely. Translated by Cid Corman
Poem by Paul Celan, translated by Cid Corman. PSALM Noone kneads us again from earth and loam, noone evokes our dust. Noone. Praised be you, noone. Because of you we wish to bloom. Against you. A nothing were we, are we, will we be, blossoming: the nothing’s-, the noonesrose. With its pistil soulbright, its stamen heavencrazed, its crown red from the purpleword that we sang over, o over its thorn.
March 10, 2025 at 12:47 AM
mnisinson.bsky.social
Thanks to Southern Humanities Review for publishing my poem about being and having a parent! And for sharing this excerpt on their twitter account. Hopefully they come to bluesky soon! Check out issue 57.4 with my work and so much more! www.southernhumanitiesreview.com/current-issu...
Screenshot of a tweet from SouthernHumanitiesReview @SouthernHReview “Listen to the story of your childhood again and again in "Apparent" by@mnisinson Explore more from SHR 57.4: southernhumanitiesreview.com/current-issue.... #WritingCommunity #litmag #poetry Repetition repetition repetition. When I tell you the story about your childhood. When I tell you the story about your childhood, I know that you have heard it before. But how else can I tell you, that the child you, that infant you, are still so real to me. So present. Grown as you are now. - from "APPARENT" by MATTHEW NISINSON SHR VOL S7 NO 4”
February 21, 2025 at 12:38 AM
mnisinson.bsky.social
In the below, I write a bit about spending a day at the Met communing with the art. I spent quite a bit of time with this Roman sarcophagus lid in the Greek and Roman wing. Watching other patrons react to it was also very rewarding.
Roman sarcophagus lid with a couple reclining together and gazing into each others faces. At the Metropolitan Museum of Art
February 8, 2025 at 11:41 PM
mnisinson.bsky.social
I spent the weekend reading How to Not Exclude Artist Mothers (and Other Parents) by Hettie Judah, in between kids’ birthday parties and other activities. Appropriately, I finished it by unicorn night light. This book should be required reading for anyone working in a creative field. Inspiring!
Book “How Not to Exclude Artist Mothers (and Other Parents)” by Hettie Judah, in a dark room in the light of a unicorn night light
January 26, 2025 at 11:04 PM
mnisinson.bsky.social
My 2024 in books is now up on my blog! Pictured here in no particular order are my top 10. Thoughts about each, plus more on my year in reading, at the link nisinson.wordpress.com/2025/01/05/m...

What were your favorite reads of 2024? Any goals for 2025?
Stack of books on a wooden chair. LOVE POEMS OF CATULLUS ELIOT WEINBERGER THE LIFE OF TU FU NDP1592 Sister Love: The Letters of Audre Lorde and Pat Parker 1974 -1989 ROLE PLAY CLARA DRUMMOND LONESPEECH LEX ICON Salette Tavares Burt After Callimachus PAPI PICHÓN DIMITRI REYES Bernadette Mayer Midwinter Day Tablets: Secrets of the Clay Dunya Mikhail
January 5, 2025 at 10:59 PM
mnisinson.bsky.social
My December 2024 roundup is now posted to my blog! A short one for the last month of 2024, but some good stuff! nisinson.wordpress.com/2025/01/04/d...
Screenshot of a blog post: “Monthly Round-Up December 2024 Roundup Published by mnisinson on January 4, 2024” With timed selfie of Matthew Nisinson on the sidewalk in lower Manhattan.
January 4, 2025 at 6:39 PM
mnisinson.bsky.social
Read “Burning All Through” and four other translations of Catullus 85 in @LAReview losangelesreview.org/5-translations…
Screenshot of a tweet by Serenity Discko @serenitydiscko•10/24/24 Gaius Valerius Catullus, translated by Matthew Nisinson, from "Burning All Through," — I don’t know it, but I feel it — burning all through me.
January 4, 2025 at 2:18 PM
mnisinson.bsky.social
My last publication of 2024, second this year in print! The kind folks at Southern Humanities Review published my poem, Apparent, about being a parent and having a parent. Just sharing a teaser because the poem isn’t available online, but it’s a great issue and worth picking up!
Cover of a poetry journal: “SOUTHERN HUMANITYE S REVIEW PUBLISHED QUARTERLY SINCE 1967 VOL 57.4 AMARAKEERTHI • BANDUJEEWA • CHAMPAGNE • COLLIER • CROWN • GOLDEN HALT • HEBERT • MALLAWAARACHCHI • MARTIN • MCKINLEY • NLSINSO NUHMAN • PARK • RAJAKARUNANAYAKE • DISANAYAKA RATNAYAKE SCHUMANN • SEGREST • SIVAMOHAN • SPQON • WALLACE • WURZBACHER” Top of a page, cutting off part of a poem: “MATTHEW NISINSON Apparent for Dorian and for Edith Repetition repetition repetition. When I tell you the story about your childhood. When I tell you the story about your childhood, I know that you have heard it before. But how else can I tell you, that the child you, that
December 29, 2024 at 11:26 PM
mnisinson.bsky.social
Very grateful to have my poem, Villanelle Origin Story, out in print with Novus Lit.
Cover of Novus Literary Arts Journal, Fall/Winter 2024, 5th Anniversary Edition, Cumberland University Photo of page with poem: “Villanelle Origin Story Matthew Nisinson for Cameron A wooden sword and candy red hair, whirling, twirling lioness on a summer's day, of harm and harming, there is no care. Grown men have fled the field and stare "I fear I'd hurt her if I tried to play!" A wooden sword and candy red hair, A goblin grin, her nostrils flare. "Beware the new girl" I hear them say, "Of harm and harming, there is no care." But still they all are gathered there, green grass, blue sky, it's time to play. A wooden sword and candy red hair, the clacking wood, the humid air, the lioness' and goblin's prey. Of harm or harming, there is no care. The seeds of friendship planted there a tree that grows from simple play. A wooden sword and candy red hair of harm and harming, there is no care.”
December 29, 2024 at 6:30 PM
mnisinson.bsky.social
On a bit of a reading spree today, this short, fantastic essay is very much worth your time, especially if you translate or read in translation (you should!), A Manifesto for Ultratranslation by Antena.
A printed pamphlet on a My Little Pony pillow: A Manifesto for Ultratranslation by Antena
December 24, 2024 at 5:21 PM
mnisinson.bsky.social
This masterpiece, Sister Love: The Letters of Audre Lorde and Pat Parker, edited by Julie R. Enszer, has been sitting on my ‘to read’ shelf for too long, I finally opened it this morning and promptly inhaled it. The window into their relationship and thought processes is an extreme privilege.
Book resting on a flannel shirt. Book is: Sister Love: The Letters of Audre Lorde and Pat Parker 1974 - 1989 Introduction by Mecca Jamilah Sullivan Edited by Julie R. Enszer
December 24, 2024 at 4:16 PM
mnisinson.bsky.social
Finally posted a new round-up to my blog, this time with October and November. It’s full of writing and music that got me through this strange Fall. What about you?
nisinson.wordpress.com/2024/12/01/o...
Screenshot of a website with text and a photo of four adirondack chairs around a table with a fire pit on a grass field. Text reads: “October and November 2024 Update Published by mnisinson on December 1, 2024 I missed posting an October update. October was a hectic month for me. A good healing chunk of it was devoted to real life relationships, gathering with friends to share”
December 1, 2024 at 10:53 PM
mnisinson.bsky.social
What are folks reading this weekend? I started Like by @aestallings.bsky.social and am loving it. Here’s her poem Art Monster from the book, my favorite so far.
Photo of a page with first half of a poem by A.E. Stallings on it. “Art Monster My mother fell for beauty, Although it was another species, Ox-eyed, dew-lapped, groomed for sacrifice. She had to devise another self To put her self in-something inhuman Or beauty could not possess her- (0 daedal mechanics!) She grew huge with hybridity, Rumor-ripened. I was born To be amazed. She fascinated me with cat's cradles, Spun threads out of my hirsute Hair shirt. I was fed On raw youths and maidens, When all I wanted was the cud of clover. I was named after my step-Father, dispenser of judgment, No one called me my mother's son.” Photo of a page with the second half of a poem, Art Monster, by A. E. Stallings on it. “Minotaur, they said, O Minotaur, You are unnatural, grotesque. A hero will come to slay you, a hero Who jilts princesses on desert islands. It is heroic to slay, to break a heart, To solve the archaic puzzle in the basement, De-monster the darkness. I await this patiently, as I bow to the yoke Of making, scratching this earliest of inscriptions On a potsherd, down here in the midden, Writing left to right, then right To left, as a broken beast furrows a field.”
December 1, 2024 at 4:35 PM
mnisinson.bsky.social
I’m thankful today for family and friends, for warmth in the cold, a roof in the rain, for hope in the present, and the examples of the past. Wishing a good day and a better world to all
A cat, a buffalo plaid blanket, and a graphic novel resting on a gray sofa. The graphic novel is The Bund: A Graphic History of Jewish Labour Resistance by Sharon Rudahl, art by Michael Kluckner
November 28, 2024 at 5:44 PM
mnisinson.bsky.social
Tablets: Secrets of the Clay by Dunya Mikhail is a particularly beautiful book inside and out. Mikhail challenged herself to write poems in prelanguage imagery, then translate them into Arabic and English. Lovely.
Book in a lap. Book is Tablets: Secrets of the Clay by Dunya Mikhail
November 19, 2024 at 8:34 PM
mnisinson.bsky.social
My current read, while the little one plays in the playground with her friend. It’s amazing when they get to the age to entertain each other while we sit and read
Lap with a book on it. Book is Beowulf a New Verse Translation by Maria Dahvana Headley
November 19, 2024 at 8:30 PM
mnisinson.bsky.social
Here’s a short one of mine, part of my Catullus 85 manuscript, and inspired by studying the front and back of ancient coins. poetrysocietyny.org/matthew-nisi...
READING CATULLUS ON THE METRO-NORTH Observe the obverse, a shining coin. Loving passion, encircled, this is not the soft love of flowers and sparrows, hard- edged with cutting need. Flip it, reverse it. Hate. Shameful fire, stiffening your cheeks. One pair at least. Impossible to know which which side you'll get. It's too warm clutched in my fist.
November 17, 2024 at 7:20 PM
mnisinson.bsky.social
I sent this one to a lot of people in my life last week. Water and dirt, laughter and tears.
(Hecale, frag. 298) The god who made us made us such that whenever you or anybody laugh, someone is probably crying; someone got hurt. If the foreground is joy, the background is always sad. I admit it's not much but it's something to say, on that poor god's behalf: look what he had to work with. Look what we came from: water and dirt.
November 17, 2024 at 7:06 PM
mnisinson.bsky.social
Consider people you never knew.
(Epigram 17) "Tuovon" tis 5' took, ud Oaiovas, oi o' av Erieyve When I am in cemeteries I consider people I never knew when they were alive. Timothea, your smooth grave says only that you were named after your father, and where you died, and when, and that Eugene, your husband, loved you after you were gone.
November 17, 2024 at 7:04 PM
mnisinson.bsky.social
This is grief, pure and succinct.
(Epigram 11) The Láwv ó Aikwvos Akávelo, ispòv ünvov Whatever happens happens for all time. Under this stone sleeps Saon, the Acanthian, whose father was Dikon. who will not awaken again. Don't say hes unremembered. (But now he'll never be mine.)
November 17, 2024 at 7:04 PM