Matthew Hittinger's first poem begins with the absence of art: "There Were No Sculptures." This absence does not mean that art disappears or is forgotten. Instead, the void becomes filled, first by "bent steel beams and painted rods / sheet metal cut outs and rusted knots" then, eventually, the people who "posed in their stead" replacing the sculptures. This is the power of art: its insistence on existing. Even in its absence, art forces itself to appear in some form, a new form. Hittinger's second poem begins with Stendhal syndrome, an ecstatic moment that is caused by viewing a work of art. The triggering point that causes this ecstatic moment is, again, the art of the human body. The poem is written as a diptych, and this dual nature speaks to the relationship of viewer to artwork as well as poem to artwork. The reaction to the work of art, whether that reaction is internal thought or an ecstatic moment or the decision to write a poem, is inherently separate from the art itself. The decision to write a poem comes from a similar place as the cause of Stendhal syndrome, the desire to make that internal thought manifest itself outward, to perpetuate itself and spread itself: "for the simple project called form / called awe pleasure and delight / to view, to be viewed." Andrew Wessels