Two Bolts

Matt Broaddus

POETRY  |  $12 $10.80

December 2021
Read an excerpt

Delivery

As in heaven. As in temporary
detention facility. The whitecap devils

appear without warning. Porcupine quill
jackets. For a small bribe these heads can be

taxidermied. I am only a visitor. Tasting
metal and led around discord street

for a tongue that works. A green plus
sign. A sympathetic

apothecary. In caves silent
as lightning. Why do you pace? Why

chew fingers in the parking lot? You will
wake the voluminous one. The one

who rises without warning.
As the horizon.

As the daily sea conveys
the faithful boats along its little blue belt.

These poems are a celebration of, and maybe a map to, the Imagination.

Matthew Rohrer

Fractured and wandering, Two Bolts explores the experience of Black diaspora as a circulatory process. Bodies move toward and away from history, myth, and various “imagined communities,” to borrow the term from Benedict Anderson. These poems swing between continents and times in fragmented couplets that lyrically craft a cosmology out of pieces. The speaker finds and loses multiple selves in the breaks and enjambments of Black life as Broaddus experiences it. Together, the poems sound the weird currents of place and belonging.

About the Author

Matt Broaddus is a poet and Associate Poetry Editor at Okay Donkey Press. He is the author of the chapbook Space Station (Letter [r] Press). His poetry has appeared in Black Warrior Review, PANK, Fence, Foundry, and The Offing. He has received fellowships from Cave Canem and the Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation as well as a residency from the Millay Colony for the Arts and a scholarship from the Community of Writers. He lives in Colorado and works at a public library.

Praise

These poems are a celebration of, and maybe a map to, the Imagination. The Imagination is their locale. And the speaker of each poem is like Sinbad, facing new and more fabulous wonders as each poem unfolds. Never have you traveled gladly to as many exotic places in a single poem. But mostly, these poems are an absolute delight. With a mysterious Eastern European quickness, an ancient Chinese detached observation, and a little bit of Joe Ceravolo, each of them creates a world unto itself. I happily stepped lightly from one to the next.

Matthew Rohrer

Broaddus's poetry has the structure of light. History and the individual's place are both both wavy and particulate. The way this poet encapsulates history actually casts it all around like suspended confetti that the speaker and reader move through. Absolutely electric.

Jessica Lanay

In the News

Links

Five Questions with Matt Broaddus on Foundry

Interview with Matt Broaddus on Verse of April

Feature in Linden Avenue Literary Journal

Publication Details

Chapbook
Saddle-stitched. 32 pp, 4.875 x 7 in
Publication Date: December 01 2021
Distribution: Asterism Books (US)