Harbor Editions, 2024
Cover Art: Matthew Hittinger
ISBN: 978-1-957248-32-5
8 x 10
84 Pages
Guided by the magic of the asterisk, the ekphrastic impulse central to Matthew Hittinger’s work continues in Thought * Frost * Voodoo through explorations of works by Jess, Kandinsky, and Max Ernst. But there’s a reverse ekphrastic twist: drawing inspiration from kindred poet-artists like Mina Loy and Elizabeth Bishop, the poems then serve as inspiration for an accompanying series of lino and woodblock prints. Sound sculpts the line as much as the interplay of white space, text, and ink, oulipian- and oubapian-inspired restrictions dictating the hidden narratives inherent in description.
Selections from Thought * Frost * Voodoo
Reviews and Press
“Matthew Hittinger’s Thought * Frost * Voodoo is obscurantist objectivist oulipian poetry ensnared in a J.H. Williams dream nest wrought on a splash-page woodblock. In an astonishing shift away from lyric narrative, Hittinger’s chapbook of new poems dares to ‘beach’ the reader against its new ‘beat beguiled’ and his own Lynd Ward-inspired works of origami art, ‘scalp massage pierc{ing}’ language against image ‘just/enough to bring form into being’, and ‘creat{ed} in its wild impatience to live’ ‘not/squashed but open’ to glimmering possibilities of meaning.”
– Paolo Javier, author of O.B.B.
“Matthew Hittinger’s collection of poems and woodblock collages is a kind of archeology, digging through the detritus of the world and the heart for treasure after treasure. His works engage continuously with other literary and visual creations, from Elizabeth Bishop to Kandinsky. The delicious specificity of his word choices takes center stage, but each piece explores the possibilities of form as part of the poetry, imagineering space and line into sculptures and codes. There is a sensual historicity at play here, as if we are handling ancient cuneiform tablets, or reciting magic spells.”
– Lorette C. Luzajic, founder, The Ekphrastic Review; author, The Rope Artist
Book Highlights
September 17, 2024: Book Release