Who's Who Vivid

When Caesar said about horses that if the gods hadn’t invented them, we would have to, he could have been talking about Matt Hart whose poems are of such immediate, radiant presence, they seem as true and necessary as air. In vital self-sabotages and improvisational self-renewals, the buzz of the mosh-pit pokes us through the sky. The book you now hold in your hands is luxurious with nerve, speed and crash, the work of an explorative explosiveness that is constantly whacked by the world as it is. Welcome to a new realism hatching from the old. Welcome to the human heart. Welcome to the launch site. - Dean Young These poems marry cinema and song, conflagration and precision in a double-ceremony lead by Matt Hart in an enormous cathedral with no roof. The work in Who's Who Vivid is driven by strange narrative and daring associations, experiments that negotiate the terrain between the subconscious and the shag carpet. It is a remarkable display of virtuosity and freshness. These poems are stunning and funny and troubling, deeply serious, off-handedly brilliant. Matt Hart has cast out a net and brought back news from another world, written in the language of this one -urgent, entertaining, candid, and smart. Who's Who Vivid is a sizzling debut by an important new poet. - Laura Kasischke