Clive Matson's mentor in Beat when he went to New York in his teens was the wily and treacherous Herbert Huncke. Huncke was not much of a writer or worker at anything though, unless you count stealing and dealing, until late in life, and Matson's true influence in matters poetic was John Wieners. This book first came out in 1966, (reprinted now by Regent Press). In 1966, though the heroes of Beat were passé so far as most people were concerned, still, Matson's book sold out its first edition of 1,000.
Wieners' introduction is in the form of a boxy, elliptical-lined Wieners poem, almost as good as a poem like 'One for the Old Man' in The New American Poetry, 1960's stupendous anthology edited by Don Allen. Almost as good, and out of the same bag.
If Matson had an affair with Huncke, as it appears from the poem that he must have, he probably wasn't comfortable with it. He doesn't crow over it, as Ginsberg might have done. A real gay such as Wieners for example could never have written even in gay terms the rather self-regarding sex poems such as 'Nightime.' Description of cock, 'doughy flesh', etc, greasy cunt. Matson gives out the bragadoccio--youth in its ithyphallic daze--it's a bit thin as poetry and accounts for the book's cachet in being banned in 1968 by British customs. (What better recommendation?)
These poems fizz sultrily with an opiate-oriented sensibility. They appear to cast around for meaning whilst reeling under the realization of being close to the hub of a thing called Beat.
David Meltzer could be another poetic influence, but Matson's book is of interest mainly as an authentic outgrowth of the time, 1966, when the world was regarding Beat as old hat. Matson was still under the allure, and no less the writer for that. He may catch at some of the tone but fails to come up with a quotable line in a fairly thick poetry book. The poems strike me as notes and observations that never really turn into satisfying poems. He certainly lacks John Wieners' magisterial knack of presenting wild poetic narratives bulging with haunting details fleshed out in everyday terms.