Jump Soul
New and Selected Poems
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- $12.99
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- $12.99
Publisher Description
A stunning collection from a poet who “writes with a scalding aortal brilliance that leaves the reader drunk on dream” (New York Times Book Review).
Selecting from among Charlie Smith’s seven previous collections and including more than forty astonishing new poems, Jump Soul represents work from the career of a poet who “writes with a scalding aortal brilliance that leaves the reader drunk on dream” (New York Times Book Review). From the lush Southern landscapes of Red Roads (1987) and the haunted longing of Heroin (2000) to the bold eroticism of Women of America (2004) and, most recently, the fresh and exuberant Word Comix (2009), Smith reminds us “that we don’t really know what beauty is until we’ve looked hard at the horror that throws beauty into bright relief” (David Kirby, New York Times). Beauty in Smith’s poetry is mixed with harrowing darkness; it is “the rescued returned to the floods / and fruit pickers, those who catch beauty / aflight on the sweet-smelling breeze, authentic characters / messed up, dead on the floor / of western motels, crapped out jinxed, lost / to the boulevards.” Smith is a poet of “shimmering energy” (Mary Oliver). His work, brutal in its honesty and stunning in its lyricism, is represented in all of its extraordinary range in this new collection.
From “Collected First Lines”
I’m sure there is meaning,
and I know it’s sometimes more interesting
to stand in a road than to move along it,
though even this, said with such confidence
just a minute ago,
explains nothing.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Poet and novelist Smith (Word Comix) opens with a generous offering of new poems before selecting from his seven previous collections. He finds beauty in past addictions and broken marriages, a teeming mesh of impenetrable wordiness, sorrow, and intricately textured environments. Smith explores regret while moving forward with equal abandon: "I'd walk out on myself if I could," he writes in "Late Days." His poems work best when stripped of their habit of big-word bravado: "sometimes what passes on from us/ has little to do with what we hoped, but nonetheless/ carries word of who we were and what we found." Often compared to Charles Wright for his rich descriptions of place, Smith should also be acknowledged for his smart poetic turns he often ends poems with an open door, an ominous or luminous cadence. "As For Trees" employs lush arboreal images as a loose timeline for the women he has known: "spatters of scarlet in the white, vague yellow musings, blue silk bits, rouged lip skin peeled off and crumpled up." "Beds" echoes his dynamic movement through life: "nights of delightful smells,/ nights on the river, by the sea, inland nights/ spoken of in hushed voices, nights by the wayside,/ nights come to bed late for no reason."
