Broken heart syndrome is a temporary heart condition often brought on by stressful situations and extreme emotions. It may also be called stress cardiomyopathy, takotsubo cardiomyopathy or apical ballooning syndrome.
—Mayoclinic.org
Squander heart, drunk heart, wobble heart, soup
heart, waste heart, want heart, octopus trap heart,
taser heart, mutter heart, squabble heart, munch heart,
torn heart, lone heart, squelch heart, spit heart,
failed scattershot betrayed mad bitch Takotsubo heart,
Brood heart, long heart, short heart, split heart
stun heart, thwart heart, sweat heart, sweet
heart. Seven thousand dollar down maximum
allowable out-of-pocket broke heart.
—Abby Frucht
JUDGE’S COMMENTS: “I love this list so much! It's got all the range and mess of the human condition packed inside it and the sounds (squelch! Thwart! Sweat!) propel us forward, careening toward that devastating final couplet. The adjectives the poet has attached to the heart are freewheeling, wild, unexpected, deeply specific, incredibly evocative. This poem executes an interesting concept extremely well.”
Abby Frucht
POET’S STATEMENT: “One of the things I’ve enjoyed about being a writer all these 64 years is the invitation to make something on paper of illness, so when we writers are sick or in the hospital, we’re always making notes, negotiating - via language and vocabulary, complaint and curiosity - with what’s happening to us. Thank you, Sarah Kortemeier and Wisconsin Fellowship of Poets for helping me celebrate that fact.”