It has been criminally underreported that MFA program graduates Chris Speckman and Andrew Soliday have been tapped to open up Matt Hart‘s poetry reading at Franklin College tonight, 6:30PM in the Hamilton Auditorium, and it would be a shame if a few Butler students couldn’t make the drive. Between graduation and several Dialogue events, Chris has proven to be a composed, eloquent reader, and his poetry – a late addition to his thesis work – is only getting better. Andrew is an excellent counterpoint; the natural charm of his between-poem interludes is almost as much of a selling point as his fantastic body of work.
Matt Hart himself – y’know, the main event – is pretty good, too. He teaches writing and aesthetics at the Art Academy of Cincinnati and is co-founder and editor of Forklift Ohio: A Journal of Poetry, Cooking, & Light Industrial Safety. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in The Butcher Shop, The Canary, and Ploughshares, and his first full-length book of poems Who’s Who Vivid is forthcoming from Slope Editions. But perhaps more interestingly, he was lead vocalist for the punk rock band Squirtgun, and draws influence from this in the performance of his poetry. You can sample of his work right here. And hey, here you can listen to him read his poem “Amplifier to Defender.”