His new book, Carnets (Poiema/Cascade, 2025), is quite different than his other poetry books — probably quite different than any poetry book you’ve ever encountered. It consists of 500 single-line poems, or aphorisms. Here are a few of those which recently appeared in Ekstasis:
------If the words rise up to meet you, it’s poetry.
------Everything good was created by God; the rest, by committee.
------The truth is whole but mostly found in scraps.
------When you contemplate, time flows around you not through you.
I am honoured to have worked with Kevin Hart as editor for Carnets.
The following poem first appeared in the Tasmanian journal Forty South. The first half of the title is taken from some very old Chinese poems, and yet reminds me of similar epigraphs leading into several of the Psalms. Lake St. Clair, here, has nothing to do with the Ontario/Michigan border, but to the mountain lake in Tasmania.
To the Tune of “Early in the Morning”
Dissolving hills
Cradling Lake St. Clair:
The milky light of winter
In the early hours,
A forest old as rain
And a cold sky running south
As far as mind can see
With glaciers calving there.
God made the world
With just a breath:
Three days now
Of hiking through it.
Posted with permission of the poet.
*This is the second Kingdom Poets post about Kevin Hart: first post.
Entry written by D.S. Martin. He is the author of six poetry collections including Angelicus (2021, Poiema/Cascade), plus three anthologies — available through Wipf & Stock. His new book The Role of the Moon, inspired by the Metaphysical Poets, is now available from Paraclete Press.
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