By John Hoppenthaler

How fine to be alive, sitting by the Thames
only a month after my second angioplasty.
Then it was Valentine's Day, weeks pierced
by angina, aisles of greeting cards, candy
hearts with "U B Mine" and "Got Cha"

stenciled over them like stitches. Irresistible,
almost sweet as lemon drops I sucked on
in the Tower, shadowed itself by the timeless
rapture of death, lazy, wing-clipped circles
of raven light. How fine sipping lukewarm

bitters, hand-drawn from the grave cellar
of Valium dreams. A tablet-nitroglycerin—
placed under the tongue burns like the devil's
host but allows platelets to squirm their way
around the lesions. It was Valentine's Day,

and I'm in this pub watching a half-crocked
tourist click photos. I'll appear in the locket
of windowpane, framed above daffodils
pulsing erratically on river wind. The golden
spine of Tower Bridge mostly fills one blue

gasp of sky. How incredibly fine. Somewhere
the small soul who lived inside my heart's
dead tip waits while I wander back home.
To meet with me again as lovers will. It
mourns my joy here, so tiny, so sweet and fragile.

The Importance of Arts, Culture & The Creative Process

I've said this before, in interviews and Q&A situations, but poetry saved my life. I absolutely believe that. Learning to involve myself--body and soul--in the creative process has indeed been transformative; it's provided me an artistic pathway toward engaging both with psyche and with that which exists beyond the self in productive and often therapeutic ways.

What was the inspiration for your creative work?

The poem was inspired by my history of heart disease and a solo trip to London during my years as a PhD student at West Virginia University. It appeared in my first book, Lives of Water.

Tell us something about the natural world that you love and don’t wish to lose. What are your thoughts on the kind of world we are leaving for the next generation?

I'm a first generation American, and my parents, because they had to work all the time to make ends meet, were often absent. I spent much of my time in the wooded areas that surrounded our home in Rockland County, NY. I could be found fishing in the streams there, climbing trees, catching frogs and whatnot for hours on end. That interaction with nature has informed both my life and my poetry. Most of my poems begin in a natural setting and take off from there, and I do write environmentally-conscious poems. Here's a link to one.

John Hoppenthaler’s books of poetry are Night Wing Over Metropolitan Area, Domestic Garden, Anticipate the Coming Reservoir, and Lives of Water, all with Carnegie Mellon UP. With Kazim, Ali, he has co-edited a volume of essays on the poetry of Jean Valentine, This-World Company (U of Michigan P). His poetry and essays appear in Ploughshares, Virginia Quarterly Review, New York Magazine, TriQuarterly, Southern Review, Poetry Northwest, McSweeney’s Internet Tendency, Southeast Review, Blackbird, Southern Humanities Review, and many other journals, anthologies, and textbooks. He is a Professor of Creative Writing and Literature at East Carolina University.