Poetic Prose

Formally constrained writing has usually been the domain of poetry. Mathews was a poet as well as a novelist; his poems are as stylistically and thematically varied as are his novels. He said he learned from the writing of Raymond Roussel how to bring techniques of poetry into the composition of prose.

"Three War Poems" was part of a musical collaboration with Australian composer Keith Humble; the piece premiered in Paris on October 24, 1963. On the other side, Mathews typed his French translation of these poems.