Matthew Hittinger is a poet and printmaker. He’s the author of The Masque of Marilyn (GOSS183, 2017), The Erotic Postulate (2014) and Skin Shift (2012) both from Sibling Rivalry Press, and the chapbooks Thought * Frost * Voodoo (Harbor Editions, forthcoming 2024), Platos de Sal (Seven Kitchens Press, 2009), Narcissus Resists (GOSS183, 2009), and Pear Slip (Spire Press, 2007) winner of the Spire 2006 Chapbook Award.
Born and raised in Bethlehem, PA (not far from the grave of one of his influences, H.D.), Matthew did his undergraduate work in Art History and English at Muhlenberg College and received his MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Michigan (now known as the Helen Zell Writers’ Program) where he won a Hopwood Award for Poetry and The Helen S. and John Wagner Prize. Matthew was named a 2012 Debut Poet on the 8th annual list by Poets & Writers Magazine and has received the Kay Deeter Award from the journal Fine Madness, two Sundress Best of the Net nominations, and eleven Pushcart Prize nominations. His work has been featured on Verse Daily and The Academy of American Poets’ Poem-A-Day, on the Library of Congress’s The Poet and The Poem, and has appeared in numerous anthologies, journals and magazines. He did a turn as a Guest Editor and then Managing Editor of OCHO magazine from 2014-15.
Matthew has collaborated with a number of artists in other disciplines, including the late video artist Liz Stephens and composer Matt Sargent on the video project “the heart strobed superimposed”; painters Kristy Gordon, Judith Peck, Francien Krieg, and Nadine Robbins (whose portrait of him appeared on the cover of Chronogram magazine); composer Randall West on an art song cycle featuring the texts of “Skin Game” and “Not Berdache Not Gynandromorph Not Even Two Spirit”; and composer John Glover on a number of projects, including setting the text of “The Astronomer on Misnomers” to electronic music with flute accompaniment, and creating an art song out of “8:46 A.M., Five Years Later” for the Five Boroughs Music Festival’s Five Borough Songbook.
Matthew lives in Astoria, Queens in New York City and is married to the Canadian photographer, educator and writer, Michael Ernest Sweet.
