Breaking Spring by Matt Hart

View this email on a browser Forward to a friend June 24, 2016   Breaking Spring   Matt Hart

seems like a good way to say I spent all last week feeling helpless and talking about it in terms of not being   Why can’t compassion change our lives even half so completely as a suicide bomber, or half so immediately as a natural disaster   Big ideas get me nowhere, so the fact that breaking spring feels better than cracking up is at least a start   toward a walk through Washington Park, its trees in pink blossom, its white-yellow-purple Tomorrow I will talk about Frankenstein   in bed and then I will talk about it with people who are sleeping    I will say that it’s a book about artistic responsibility    I will   say it’s alive     It’s alive     And some number of eyes will stare back at me without believing any of it matters, or without believing   it matters for them       And what can I say to convince them     I have only my love to recommend it beyond what it already is   My suspect credibility upon the rockets of birds, the soft parts of people, the oceans’ inevitable, cyclical weeping     Who has time for poetry has more time than they deserve            Copyright © 2016 Matt Hart. Used with permission of the author. About This Poem   “As I’m writing this, the Bradford Pear in my front yard is in full blossom. ‘Breaking Spring’ is a reminder to look at it, to be reassured and grateful—to stay alive!—to take nothing for granted. I might note, too, that it was originally three pages long. For about a year now, I’ve been going back to it, periodically pruning its leafscape and chopping at it: O lightning strike monster of spring on the loose, open your dull eyes, breathe hard, convulse!” —Matt Hart   Matt Hart, with the artist Ken Henson, is the author of Blue Jay Slayer (Aurore Press, 2015), a collaborative book of art and poetry. He teaches at the Art Academy of Cincinnati and lives in Cincinnati, Ohio.   Poetry by Hart   Blue Jay Slayer (Aurore Press, 2015)  "Engines Within the Throne" by Cathy Park Hong "The Apple Trees at Olema" by Robert Hass "Spring and All [By the road to the contagious hospital]" by William Carlos Williams Poem-a-Day   Launched during National Poetry Month in 2006, Poem-a-Day features new and previously unpublished poems by contemporary poets on weekdays and classic poems on weekends. Thanks for being a part of the Academy of American Poets community. To learn about other programs, including National Poetry Month, Poem in Your Pocket Day, the annual Poets Forum, and more, visit Poets.org.   You are receiving this e-mail because you elected to subscribe to our mailing list. If you would like to unsubscribe, please click here.   © Academy of American Poets 75 Maiden Lane, Suite 901, New York, NY 10038