Matthew S. Parsons is a poet and farmer from eastern Kentucky. He has been published poetry in print and online journals such as Pine Mountain Sand & Gravel , Rattle , and Still: the Journal , among others. Matt is a professional musician and songwriter, touring domestically and internationally. Matt is currently working at home farming, creating new music, writing poetry and fiction, and enjoying the company of his wife and children. Mountain Roosters is his debut full-length collection. Advance praise: "There is so much music within the pages of this debut collection of poetry. That music is so fine and lovely that it would be enough on its own but this book also contains wordplay, wit, history, and deep insights into Appalachian culture, the complications of masculinity, and the natural world. It is rare for such a young writer to possess so much wisdom but it shows up throughout the pages of Mountain Roosters , announcing a bright new voice who is celebrating and critiquing his place and his people in complex, beautiful ways." – Silas House, author of Lark Ascending "The poems in this collection are wild with invention as they respond to fallen-down content through wonderful rhymes and living form. The result is a kind of finely-tuned music playing along with everyday sorrow and expected grief that serves as a believable backdrop to recent Appalachian reality. The poems in this fine collection signal love and anxiety for the unknown that comes after such love in equal measure." – Maurice Manning, author of Snakedoctor “Matt Parsons’s debut collection untangles the mythos of what it means to be male in Appalachia, intensified by rhymes and a rhythm that only a songwriter can achieve. In language that rings “like belt buckles and banjo strings,” the poems in Mountain Roosters pay tribute to men who share a “coal-covered history.” And while “it’s the nature of men / to pretend / it’s no big deal,” these poems state otherwise and invite us to reconsider our own notions of masculinity, power, and influence in contemporary Appalachia.” – Marianne Worthington, author of The Girl Singer