Micah Mattix, Ph.D.

Bio

Micah Mattix completed his Ph.D. at the University of Fribourg under the American poet and critic Robert Rehder and taught at Yale University, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and Houston Baptist University before joining Regent in 2016. His research interests are primarily in modern and contemporary poetry.

He is the author of two books of criticism and the editor of an anthology of contemporary Christian poetry. He writes regularly on cultural topics for a wide range of publications, including The Wall Street Journal, The Atlantic, National Review, and The New Criterion, among others. He was appointed poetry editor at First Things in 2021 and is a senior editor at Spectator World.

He and his wife live in Suffolk and have four adult children.

Credentials

• Ph.D., University of Fribourg, Switzerland
• M.A., North Carolina State University, Raleigh, North Carolina
• B.A., North Carolina State University, Raleigh, North Carolina

Publications

Books:

• (ed.) Christian Poetry in America Since 1940: An Anthology (2021)
• The Soul Is a Stranger in this World: Essays on Poetry and Poets (2019)
• Frank O’Hara and the Poetics of Saying “I” (2011)

Selected Essays and Articles:

• “The Permanence and Failure of Surrealism.” New Criterion (2018).
• “Milton’s Morality.” The Weekly Standard (2018).
• “1922 and All That.” The Wall Street Journal (2017).
• “The Poem that Made Picasso Possible” The Wall Street Journal (2016).
• “Crisis in Conscience.” The Wall Street Journal (2016).
• “I Wandered around This Glow.” Books and Culture (2015).
• “The Poet: Companion to the Common Man.” Chronicles Magazine (2015).
• “Portrait of the Artist as a Caveman.” The New Atlantis 38 (2013): 128-139.
• “Family Man.” National Review (2013).
• “Have You Ever Tried to Sell a Poem on Craigslist?” The Atlantic (2013).
• “Walker Percy’s Alternative to Scientism in The Thanatos Syndrome.” Political Companion to Walker Percy. Eds. Peter Lawler and Brian A. Smith. Louisville: University of Kentucky Press (2013): 145-158.
• “Back to Blood.” The Washington Times (2012).
• “A True Account?” Pleiades31.2 (2011).
• “On Christian Literature.” Comment Magazine (3 December 2010).
• “Periodization and Difference.”New Literary History 35.4 (2004): 685-697.

Affiliations

• First Things, Poetry Editor
• Spectator World, Senior Editor
• The American Conservative, Former Literary Editor
• The Weekly Standard, Former Contributing Editor

Memberships

• National Book Critics Circle
• Association of Literary Scholars, Critics, and Writers

Awards

• Young Researcher’s Grant, Swiss National Science Foundation