"Often I just let myself release for 30 minutes or so and see what comes out," he says. "I make time. I say 'Forget the Ec10 Problem Set, it's time to write.'"
Matthew, who practices his poetry about two hours a week, says he wants to "carve a niche for [himself] in the creative community here in Cambridge."
And indeed Matthew has shared his writing with both the local and the Harvard community.
He was a featured artist at the Lizard Lounge and his poetry will appear on a CD the Cambridge club is producing; tonight he is performing at the Underground, a club in Providence; and he will open for the Last Poets, a hip hop group, at MIT next weekend.
On campus he reads his poetry and often freestyles (a form of rap in which the lyrics are made up impromptu), which he considers "a form of oral poetry."
Matthew says that his written poetry has had an important impact on his freestyling.
"Most people freestyle about frivolous topics like 'my shoes are better than yours,' but I speak through symbols and metaphors when I rhyme and if you're not on my level and you're not listening to me, then you won't catch up," he says.
Starting Young
Tammy L. Brown '98 also recites original poetry for an audience. Yet Brown had her first opportunity to share her poetry with the public when she was 16 competing for Miss Black Teen Cincinatti in 1992.
In her junior year of high school Brown performed an original choreopoem, which she described as "a dramatic presentation of poetry, with music, singing and dancing."
But Brown's writing career began even earlier than that. Brown says she has been writing poetry since she was in the sixth grade and at 17 self-published a book of poetry that sells for $14.95.
This year Brown will put on another choreopoem called "I Cannot Be Moved," which is a "chronological collage of snapshots of Black history" according to Brown.
Brown also reads her poetry at campus events and leads poetry workshops for young girls.
"Most of my poems are usually inspired by conversations," she says. "Someone may say one word or one sentence that just sparks a whole poem. I write about it to say how I am feeling and how I am thinking as best I can."
As an example, Brown recalls the origin of "Georgia," a poem from her recent show. The poem explores a young man's struggle to reconcile his love for his mother with his hatred for the slave master who raped his grandmother, she says.
"The metaphor I used was a nectarine and it was inspired by a silly conversation I had at work with some guy who told me that the fruit is a cross between a peach and a plum," she says. "I used the plum to represent his grandmother who is dark and a peach to represent the slave master.
"So that's how poems are inspired," she says with a laugh. "It's all about how I am feeling and how I am thinking.