Matt Hart, photo provided
On Tuesday, Oct. 1, Matt Hart, a poet, professor and punk rocker held two seminars, one as a Writing Workshop, the second as a reading of his different poems.
Hart, who is originally from Cincinnati, is the associate professor of creative writing at the Art Academy of Cincinnati, also holding the position of chair of Liberal Arts.
He is currently on a 42-date reading tour, traveling all over the U.S. to read his works.
Being no stranger to touring, he has been in a multitude of bands, most notably “squirtgun,” a punk-rock group that was signed to Lookout records, the same label that Green Day started on.
squirtgun’s song “Social” was featured in the opening scene of the movie Mallrats.
Hart is currently in a band titled NEVERNEW, one which has been together off and on for a little over 25 years.
Outside of his music career, Hart also partakes in a literary journal titled Forklift Ohio: A Journal of Poetry, Cooking, & Light Industrial Safety, which has been in publishing since 1994, only this year taking a break to restructure.
Hart said his passion for poetry was strengthened due to his background in music, describing poetry as another way of performing, one without amps, microphones or plugs.
His biggest piece of advice:
“Read, read, read a ton—write every day,” he said. “Carve out a little bit of time everyday to make work. You also have to be a little insane but you also have to be disciplined. So read a lot and write everyday; quantity leads to quality eventually. If you write a lot, you will eventually get somewhere; you really have to put in time.”
Hart is the author of seven novels, most of which are poetry collections.
His newest poetry collection titled Everything Breaking/For Good can be obtained through the publisher YesYes Books, while his previous collection, The Obliterations, was published through Pickpocket Publishing.
