Thresholds and Other Poems. Matt Hohner

Memorial, Dublin,” Arlington Literary Journal

      “The Color of the Fluid in My Father’s Catheter Reminds Me of Snowball Flavors,” Reed Magazine

      “Beauty,” “Winter Storm Warning,” and “What to Do When Someone Shoots Up a Gay Nightclub in Florida in the Name of God While You Are Living at an Artist Colony,” The Potomac

      “How to Unpack a Bomb Vest,” Rattle, Poets Respond

      “The Investment Building,” finalist, 2017 Muriel Craft Bailey Award, Comstock Review

      “Reverse Bachata,” Califragile

      Thresholds has garnered the following recognition:

      Crab Orchard Series in Poetry First Book Award: semi-finalist

      Backwaters Press Prize for Full-length Book Manuscript: finalist

      Brick Road Poetry Press Book Contest: runner-up

      Broadkill River Press Dogfish Head Poetry Prize: honorable mention

      Additional Thanks

      I owe numerous people a thousand bows for their help, encouragement, and assistance in the making and shaping of these poems and this book. I thank my father, sister, and my wife for being my most bedrock supporters, both in life and in my pursuits. I thank the luminous poets Bill Jones, Kathy Cottle, Clarinda Harriss, Edgar Silex, and Lisa Bickmore for being early readers of this manuscript, and for their comments and suggestions. Every publishing team who previously published many these works individually, some in earlier form, deserves immense gratitude for seeing their worth and in sharing them with others. Thank you also to the crew at Apprentice House Books for your care and labor in making this book possible. Finally, I recognize and bow deeply to Naropa University, and to my esteemed instructors there, including Anne Waldman, Steven Taylor, Andrew Schelling, and, in memoriam, Anselm Hollo, Joanne Kyger, Jack Collom, and Allen Ginsberg.

      Some of the work in this book was written and edited during a residency at the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, made possible by a grant from Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation.

      For my wife

      and for my father

      Contents

       Dream, July 5, 2006 1

       Kevin 2

       To A Poet of the Three Gorges 3

       Gulf War Veteran 4

       Under the Leonids 5

       Toward Pittsburgh 6

       Terror in the Dust 7

       Dundee Creek 9

       Columbia 10

       Dundalk 11

       The Maximum Effective Range 12

       Gut 13

       During the Mexican Revolution, Slain Catholic Rebels Were Strung from Telegraph Poles 14

       Psalm 40 15

       Hail Mary 16

       Ground Rules 17

       Pulse 18

       May Day 19

       God of Storms 20

       Thresholds 21

       When Living Well Isn’t Enough, Invite Your Enemies to Dinner 25

       Oysters 26

       Tornado Warning 27

       Vernal Nocturne 28

       Beaver Dam, 1987 29

       World Series 30

       Cord 31

       Phantom 32

       Driving at Night to My Mother’s House the Day After Christmas 33

       Beauty 34

       As I Think of You in Italy 35

       GPS 36

       After Ibsen’s Hedda Gabler at the Abbey Theater 37

       Famine Memorial, Dublin 38

       Noel Aubade 39

       Please Refrain from Celebratory Gunfire 40

       Clairaudient 41

       Confirmation 42

       In Memoriam Annum 44

       Cromwell Valley 45

       Coma 46

       Saudade: 1983 49

       The Investment Building 52

       Curfew