If you’ve walked the halls of the Virginia-Snider dorm the past few years you might have come across the intricate poetic workings of Matt Carter lining his hallway. That poetry, loved and hated by his neighbors,has been published into Carter’s first book “Storms of Change,” which he read for students Wednesday afternoon.
Carter has been seriously writing poems for about three years. Posting his poems on his door for all to enjoy and critique, he has met his fair share of resistance and rejection. Even when students trashed his work and tore it off the wall, Carter continued on. Writing has always been a passion of Carter’s and his goal was to publish.
“I love writing and I love having my writing torn apart on me just as much. Critiques only helped me grow,” Carter said. “That is why I posted it outside my door for all to read, and I gathered all my material and thought why not try a book.”
Once Carter gathered all of his work, finding a publisher was sort of a problem. Carter was finishing up his time on the reality TV show, “Beauty and the Geek,” and used that as a springboard to launch his independently published poetry.
Carter said that most of his inspiration came from any random thing, and turned his thoughts into his poetry.
“Anything that I see in my day, walking around campus if I see something humorous, that can turn into a poem,” Carter said. “One time I saw a construction worker doing a waving motion near a fence and thought I would be immature and write ‘old man humping a fence.’
I write late at night when you are alone you can really think to yourself-and when I write I really like to convey a message to my readers,” Carter said.
Carter chose to read some of his favorite selections from the book for students who came to listen. He read excerpts with such poems as “United Bears of America,” “Snyder and the Great Diamond Rush I Showed Up Late For” inspired by his grandfather, and closed with the title poem “Storms of Change.”
Carter cited that his greatest challenge wasn’t his hateful critics but rather himself.
“I don’t look at people tearing my poems from the wall as a bad thing, but rather just another hurtle,” Carter said. “The biggest hurtle was myself though, always second guessing if I was going in the right direction, because the greatest battles are the ones that you wage in your own mind.
For friend and Honors program coordinator Samantha Colletti, Carters work was something that needed to be shared with others. So she set the stage for SMU students to get a taste of Carter’s work.
“Matt is in the honors program and we like to promote the honor students who do extraordinary things,” Colletti said. “Like Matt’s work, his poetry was something that had to be shared with the other students at SMU.”
Carter plans to continue writing poetry and hopes to release another book within two years. He says that poetry is a slow process to produce quality, but hopes to release a bigger and better book for his second edition.
Carter showed that with enough focus any goal can be achieved. Having confidence in his work was what he viewed as one of his greatest assets and passed on the advice to budding writers hoping to be published.
“You have to stay focused on your goal,” Carter said. “Be confident in your own work. Just because someone dislikes your work doesn’t mean that someone else won’t think that it is the greatest piece of modern poetry.”
