Simply Rocket

by Matt Hart

Matt Hart's new sonnet cycle Simply Rocket is now available from Lame House Press. Printed in a limited edition of 200 copies. Cover art by Jane Ortrun Carver. Cover layout by Eric Appleby.

chapbook

First published January 1, 2007

About the author

Matt Hart’s books include FAMILIAR (Pickpocket Books, 2022), Everything Breaking/For Good (YesYes Books, 2019), and The Obliterations (Pickpocket Books, 2019). His poems, reviews, and essays have been published in journals including American Poetry Review, Conduit, jubilat, The Kenyon Review, and Lungfull!, among others. His awards include a Pushcart Prize, a grant from The Shifting Foundation, and fellowships from both the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference and the Warren Wilson College MFA Program for Writers.

Hart was a cofounder and the editor in chief of Forklift, Ohio: A Journal of Poetry, Cooking, & Light Industrial Safety from 1994–2019. A faculty mentor in the PNCA/Willamette University Low-Residency Creative Writing MFA Program and the head of creative writing at the Art Academy of Cincinnati, he has also been a visiting writer/professor at both the Vermont Studio Center and the University of Texas at Austin. Hart’s music has been featured on MTV and in major motion pictures, including Kevin Smith’s Mallrats. He plays in the post-punk/indie rock bands TRAVEL and NEVERNEW.

Older bio:

Matt Hart is the author of four books of poems, Who's Who Vivid (Slope Editions, 2006), Wolf Face (H_NGM_N BKS, 2010), Light-Headed (BlazeVOX, 2011), and Sermons and Lectures Both Blank and Relentless (Typecast Publishing, 2012), as well as several chapbooks. A fifth collection, Debacle Debacle, is forthcoming from H_NGM_N BKS in 2013. Additionally, his poems, reviews, and essays have appeared in numerous print and online journals, including Big Bell, Cincinnati Review, Coldfront, Columbia Poetry Review, H_NGM_N, Harvard Review, jubilat, Lungfull!, and Post Road, among others. His awards include a Pushcart Prize and fellowships from both the Bread Loaf Writers' Conference and the Warren Wilson College MFA Program for Writers. A co-founder and the editor-in-chief of Forklift, Ohio: A Journal of Poetry, Cooking & Light Industrial Safety, he lives in Cincinnati where he teaches at the Art Academy of Cincinnati and plays in the band TRAVEL. This fall he will be a Visiting Professor in Creative Writing at the University of Texas, Austin.

Reviews

[Steven · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is prolly more of a 3.5 star book in actuality b/c there were some poems that I just didn't like- they felt a little too forced/manipulated for the sake of keeping a "music" reference, and then there were other poems which were absolutely stunning,and for that he gets 4 stars. I've read quite a bit of Hart in journals and will definitely read his other books!

[Mark · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wasn't familiar with Matt Hart's work until I checkout out this handsome little book from Lame House, but I will surely be on the lookout for more. Very musical sonnets that seem to almost scan (not a requirement for sonnets, but interesting relative to the tendency of many contemporary writers (myself included) to craft sonnets of brief glottal/plotsive/fricative staccatos like we are writing in Klingon or something). A mysterious 15th line in one of them is one of those geeky flourishes that I love. Repeated tropes give it a nice rhythm and texture. Getting to the finish line sans indie-rock references would have gotten an extra star to complete the set, but I suppose this is inevitable for all writers (myself included, once again) under, like, the age of 65. I've tried to cut down, though, and you should too. Seriously, rock stars are boring. Go to the ballet or the circus or something. I digress from my original thesis which is I love this little chap.

[Kristi · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book rides. How I do love the bombastic when reclaimed as a positive.