Background

Matthew Cannon Brennan was born on January 18, 1955, in Richmond Heights, Missouri, United States. He is the son of William J. and Suzanne (Simon) Brennan. With his three brothers--Timothy, a nonprofit C.F.O., Michael (deceased), an attorney, and Christopher, an artist and college professor--he attended Mary, Queen of Peace grade school and Saint Louis U. High.

Education

Brennan graduated from Grinnell College with a bachelor's degree in 1977 and received his master's degree from the University of Minnesota in 1980. He then also earned a Doctor of Philosophy degree in 1984, specializing in English. As a senior in college he won election to Phi Beta Kappa and as a freshman lettered in varsity baseball. At Grinnell, he won an honorable mention in the Selden Whitcomb Poetry Contest, and at Minnesota he won three honorable mentions in the Academy of American Poets contests.

Career

While writing his doctoral dissertation on Wordsworth, Turner, and Romantic Landscape Traditions, Brennan worked as an editor at Golle and Holmes Financial Learning, in Minnetonka, Minnesota, from 1982-1984. He started his teaching career working as a visiting assistant professor of English at the University of Minnesota from 1984 to 1985, and since then he has taught at Indiana State University, first as an assistant professor of English, then as an associate, and since 1992, as a professor of English there. He also served as Acting Associate Director of Honors and as Director of Graduate Studies. He retired in May 2017.

Achievements

• A professor of English and creative writing, Matthew Brennan has successfully combined his roles as poet and literary scholar. He is the author of four collections of poems, Seeing in the Dark (1993), The Music of Exile (1994), The House with the Mansard Roof (2009), and One Life (2016), as well as the verse-narrative The Sea-Crossing of Saint Brendan (2008). His poems have appeared widely in such publications as Poetry Ireland Review, Notre Dame Review, South Dakota Review, Poet Lore, Sewanee Review, Commonweal, South Carolina Review,and Blue Unicorn. During his career, Brennan has also written four critical studies—Wordsworth, Turner, and Romantic Landscape (1987), The Gothic Psyche (1997), The Poet's Holy Craft (2010), and Dana Gioia (2012)—and has contributed articles and reviews to South Carolina Review, South Atlantic Quarterly, Sewanee Review, New York Times Book Review, Georgia Review, The Wordsworth Circle, Southern Quarterly, Notes and Queries, English Language Notes, and other journals.

Works

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• book

  • One Life

    (It's a book of a spare and dark American love and loss, w...)

    2016
  • The Gothic Psyche: Disintegration and Growth in Nineteenth-Century English Literature

    (The Gothic Psyche offers close readings of poems by Coler...)

    1997
  • The Poet's Holy Craft: William Gilmore Simms and Romantic Verse Tradition

    (The Poet's Holy Craft represents the first full-length an...)

    2012
  • The Sea-Crossing of Saint Brendan

    (A classic Irish sea adventure translated from Latin prose...)

    2008
  • The House with the Mansard Roof 2009
  • Wordsworth, Turner, and Romantic Landscape: A Study of the Traditions of the Picturesque and the Sublime 1987
  • The Music of Exile: Poems 1994

  • Dana Gioia: A Critical Introduction -- 2012

Membership

Brennan is a member of the William Gilmore Simms Society.

Connections

Brennan was married Laura L. Fredendall from 1977 to 1987 when the couple decided to get divorced. Together they had one son, Daniel William, a safety director in Memphis. He then married Beverley Simms on May 21, 1994. They live in Columbus, Ohio.

Father:

William J. Brennan

Mother:

Suzanne (Simon) Brennan

ex-wife:

Laura L. Fredendall

Wife:

Beverley Simms

Son:

Daniel William Brennan