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Book synopsis

After 17 collections -- including two previous new and selecteds -- one would expect the indefatigable Smith to settle down some, but not so. Proceeding chronologically (which here means back-to-front), one finds that a formal elegance and a maritime musical panache akin to early Lowell mark Smith's early work most clearly, whether meditating on oyster boats where "the currents carried/cloisters of murk, /miracles that bloom/luminous and unseen, sweet things to be/brought up, bejeweled, culled from husks" or simply capturing "the big-jawed Bluefish, ravenous, sleek muscle slamming, /convoys rank after rank, wheeling through flume and flute of blood". Poems rooted to the South show a delighted attention to its quirks and an interest in familial progressions. When Smith, however, abandons this often patriarchal legacy and opts for a more confessional tone, his music begins to unravel, giving way to prosaic speech ("It/might help to say how in my. lead/she slumps helplessly, my arms/don't know what to do with her") and bathetic doggerel ("and your voice goes/spattering against my fingers like ache's shredding/that couldn't be held back any longer"). Fortunate)y, "The Holy Mother of Connecticut Avenue" kicks off the book with a mortal vengeance -- "death's hot shit piled up around us, a stroking smoke/coded like BO out of skinless wires, on floorboards licked, / as if all we wanted was flame -- touched at last" -- and the wick catches anew. While not the major achievement a third try at a new and selected might suggest, there is enough energy here to merit a look.

Book details

Book category Books in English Literature & literary studies Poetry Poetry by individual poets

• Full title: Wick of Memory
• Subtitle: New and Selected Poems, 1970-2000
• Author: Dave Smith
• Language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 280
• EAN: 9780807125496
• ISBN: 0807125490
• ID: 11527513
• Publisher: Louisiana State University Press
• Weight: 347 g
• Dimensions: 229 × 139 × 13 mm
• Date of publishing: 01. April 2000

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