On Page 42: Radiant Action
[Radiant Action by Matt Hart, FIRST H_NGM_N EDITION, September 2016, p42-44]
Matt Hart’s Radiant Action is a collection of poetic segments or untitled poems. They often have creative unexpected descriptions like “fat earthquake” and “blast-site-sunlight-day,” which in some way are usually conveying a raw emotion. This month, we are taking a look at a poem that starts on page 42 (of course).
The story of that poem on the surface is of a speaker around company trying to enjoy a “Lake Michigan summer,” however it could be gone as soon as it has arrived. It focuses on being in the moment, while betraying itself and forcing the past and future into the rumination. This moment in Radiant Action offers that the present is experienced as a function of memory.
It opens with vivid sounds: “Dissonant piano and crush of bulldozers,/ smashing fine china,” but leads us to “grinding of souls.” One moment physical sound and the next spiritual comment. It tells us that this is not a physical space, but a headspace.
Not to soon after we are enlightened on the choice of the speaker:
I can lay down the law If I want to,
even meditate There’s gotta be some way to
mediate the dead places and also come to terms
with the terms of our amazement,
The narrator can choose quiet or excitement, but they desire elements of both. It Echoes “dissonant piano and… bulldozer” with the dissonant cognitive and physical spaces.
The speaker doubles down on the past with references to Zen Arcade (a 1984 Husker Du album) and Solar Throat Slashed (1948 poetry from Aime Cesaire). The function of being here is only built on what was there.
“Today so perfect… Tomorrow sniffing… the yard’s far edges… under porch steps or off the rotten dock” continues this dwelling on time. The “today” is made by yesterday and ruined by “tomorrow.”
“[B]ut not all life is suffering, right” brings us back to the present. We are not suffering now. Things are good in this moment. A moment of content. “Not all life,” like this moment.
By the end the speaker finds solace in his friends and family: “assemble disassemble reassemble” acknowledges the cyclical nature of society and “all we need’s each other” allows us to rise above that cyclical nature.
The dissonance that stalks throughout this pondering is less decided-on and more settled-in. Each moment has its own excitement and quiet, and choosing one is avoiding the other. The speaker resolves to try to experience both with their friends and family as a grounding rod.