The Flowers of Nonchalance

Since 2013, Dan Smart has devoted himself to writing a poem a day. After the 3,000+ poems this project has so far produced, he has proved that the old masters were right when it comes to the value of ritual: daily devotion invests "the ordinary" with curious new powers. Crafting unseen connections between mundane objects and events of this world-the rotting flesh of an avocado, the sound of a bell not being rung, the decision to either crush or spare a spider-Smart uses sparse poetic forms and wry humor to cultivate moments of genuine surprise. The Flowers of Nonchalance gathers a few dozen of these simple-yet-eclectic poems and arranges them into a snapshot of a turning year in his life as an artist-from spring through winter, and back again to spring. Recalling at times the inventive economy of William Carlos Williams, the haunting musicality of Emily Dickinson, and the backyard mysticism of Wallace Stevens, each of these short missives reads like an air-tight Logic proof; the conclusion? That existence is as funny as it is interesting-as strange as it is precious.