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The Naming of Strays
Erin Elizabeth Smith's The Naming of Strays is on fire in the best possible way--the poems sizzle with sensuality, celebrating all the senses in the way that the best blues music tips us from sadness into full-throated joy. The poems keep moving, shifting, defying expectations, singing the literal and the dream world, exalting the narrative and the experimental. I will recommend this book for poetry workshops as a primer on what poetry is and can do. And for seasoned readers, Erin Elizabeth Smith's work reminds us of why we fell in love with poetry in the first place. -MARILYN KALLET, Director, Creative Writing Program, University of Tennessee/ Erin Elizabeth Smith's poems are delicious - it is hard to resist them. But they bite back, and that is the thing: they're painful, too. And gorgeous, always. The Naming the Strays is luminous, intimate, and never afraid. - PAUL GUEST, author of My Index of Slightly Horrifying Knowledge / Erin Elizabeth Smith's poetry is the impossible love child of a young Jorie Graham and a old bottle of Jack Daniel's. -T.A. NOONAN, author of Petticoat Government & The Bone Folders
- GenresPoetry
80 pages, Paperback
First published October 17, 2011
2 people are currently reading
24 people want to read
About the author
Erin Elizabeth Smith
12 books36 followersErin Elizabeth Smith is the author of The Fear of Being Found (Three Candles Press 2008) and The Naming of Strays (Gold Wake Press 2011). Her poems have appeared in numerous journals including 32 Poems, New Delta Review, Yalobusha Review, Water~Stone, Cimarron Review, and RHINO. She teaches in the English Department at the University of Tennessee and serves as the managing editor of Stirring: A Literary Collection and the Best of the Net Anthology.
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
March 22, 2012
I admit reading poetry books isn't something I do much of anymore. When I do I go to my faves like Joy Harjo's "In Mad Love and War," Sandra Cisneros' "Loose Woman" or Michael Bugeja's "Platonic Love." Now I think I have a new book to add to the list.
I just got "The Naming of Strays" today and read it in a half an hour. I could not put it down. There's not many books I can say that about.
A bit of disclosure. I have followed Smith's poetry on and off since she was a teen, so there's some bias. But the poems in this book swept me up in a way I hadn't experienced before. They have this sense of intimacy to them, a brutal honesty that at times makes me want to hug the subject of the poem and say it will be OK, and at other times to run like hell.
In her writing, Smith doesn't back away from the struggles of love. She embraces it, wears it as a badge of survival. It's not only the rhythm of her voice but it's the rhythm of life that sweeps me up.
"The Naming of Strays" is a must read. Don't let it be a stray to your bookshelf. This is what poetry's supposed to be. Honest, intimate and even painful at times. Enjoy.
I just got "The Naming of Strays" today and read it in a half an hour. I could not put it down. There's not many books I can say that about.
A bit of disclosure. I have followed Smith's poetry on and off since she was a teen, so there's some bias. But the poems in this book swept me up in a way I hadn't experienced before. They have this sense of intimacy to them, a brutal honesty that at times makes me want to hug the subject of the poem and say it will be OK, and at other times to run like hell.
In her writing, Smith doesn't back away from the struggles of love. She embraces it, wears it as a badge of survival. It's not only the rhythm of her voice but it's the rhythm of life that sweeps me up.
"The Naming of Strays" is a must read. Don't let it be a stray to your bookshelf. This is what poetry's supposed to be. Honest, intimate and even painful at times. Enjoy.
July 23, 2012
When I read poetry, I have a pen that is also a bookmark (great invention!) that I use to circle titles of poems I want to go back to or lines that really struck me. The Naming of Strays is full of writing and nearly every poem is circled. It's nothing short of a knockout of a collection.
Smith's poems are edgy yet tender, haunting yet beautiful. Her poems are rich with wisdom. Lines like "I wonder sometimes/if patience turns us hard/like the hulled seeds of pumpkins/left to heat" will make you stop and marvel. What a simile! What wisdom!
I was also struck by Smith's unabashed honesty. She is not afraid to tackle any subject and leave her speaker naked on the sheets. This bare all type of honesty in poetry really appeals to me, because it feels so authentic.
But Smith is not about simply purging her experiences or pornographic poetry--every image is deftly done, every metaphor rich and surprising, and every detail is lovingly and painstakingly described.
I adored this book! A must read!!
Smith's poems are edgy yet tender, haunting yet beautiful. Her poems are rich with wisdom. Lines like "I wonder sometimes/if patience turns us hard/like the hulled seeds of pumpkins/left to heat" will make you stop and marvel. What a simile! What wisdom!
I was also struck by Smith's unabashed honesty. She is not afraid to tackle any subject and leave her speaker naked on the sheets. This bare all type of honesty in poetry really appeals to me, because it feels so authentic.
But Smith is not about simply purging her experiences or pornographic poetry--every image is deftly done, every metaphor rich and surprising, and every detail is lovingly and painstakingly described.
I adored this book! A must read!!
August 12, 2016
In The Naming of Strays, Erin Elizabeth Smith offers us four understandings of what it means to stray. We know it as a verb meaning to deviate, to err, to roam; but we also know it as a noun—“an animal that has strayed or wandered away from its flock.” Throughout the collection, we see these types of straying translated into poems: straying from innocence (“Sweet”), straying from relationships (“Fidelity”), and straying from home (“On Being Erroneously Called a New Yorker Again”). It is the subtle difference between these types of straying that fascinates Smith, and that forms the backbone of this remarkable collection.
Although it is straying that thematically drives the collection, the book is equally driven by the opposing force of homecoming, or at least a yearning for it. The title poem underscores this tension, the final stanza reading: “Maybe love is simply the naming of strays./ And any name will do. Each comes/ equally from the lips to make him/ gallop toward us/ through the yard/ and home.” And for Smith, Spring represents the ultimate homecoming. The final poem, “Spring Again in Hattiesburg” starts with the declaration: “Sometimes it’s as simple as a house/ butter-yellow against the spring.” For this speaker, it is the simplest of details that put us back on the road to home.
While the skeleton of the book is occupied in this thematic journey, the poems themselves are the kind that will literally make a reader hungry. Smith has a real talent for incorporating a startling sensuality into her poems-- textures and flavors that make the act of reading feel like a physical experience. These are the details that foreground and create the precise moods that readers crave, moods captured by the words she alone can choose: “mulberry weather, northern/ pines portly with snow salmon/ sunsets on the quilted ice.” At their best, these poems feel like dark chocolate truffles, the residue lingering in your mouth even after the experience is over.
This degree of sensuality perhaps contributes to the intimate quality of the poems. We follow the speaker on a dramatic journey throughout the collection, though the more confessional poems (“On Asking My Lover Not to Move to London”) are balanced with meditations (“Theories of the Earth”) and observational poems set in public spaces, such as “Sherbet,” a standout poem in which the lonely speaker imagines the life of a man in a grocery store check-out line. By the end of the book, we feel as if we have inhabited this speaker’s mind, moving through all the areas of her world.
In short, The Naming of Strays is a collection that will stir your appetite and satisfy. Erin Elizabeth Smith creates a world of exquisite beauty, and though it may be plagued by uncertainty and loss, it is never mundane. You will want to read these poems over and over again.
Reviewed by Skyler LaLone
Although it is straying that thematically drives the collection, the book is equally driven by the opposing force of homecoming, or at least a yearning for it. The title poem underscores this tension, the final stanza reading: “Maybe love is simply the naming of strays./ And any name will do. Each comes/ equally from the lips to make him/ gallop toward us/ through the yard/ and home.” And for Smith, Spring represents the ultimate homecoming. The final poem, “Spring Again in Hattiesburg” starts with the declaration: “Sometimes it’s as simple as a house/ butter-yellow against the spring.” For this speaker, it is the simplest of details that put us back on the road to home.
While the skeleton of the book is occupied in this thematic journey, the poems themselves are the kind that will literally make a reader hungry. Smith has a real talent for incorporating a startling sensuality into her poems-- textures and flavors that make the act of reading feel like a physical experience. These are the details that foreground and create the precise moods that readers crave, moods captured by the words she alone can choose: “mulberry weather, northern/ pines portly with snow salmon/ sunsets on the quilted ice.” At their best, these poems feel like dark chocolate truffles, the residue lingering in your mouth even after the experience is over.
This degree of sensuality perhaps contributes to the intimate quality of the poems. We follow the speaker on a dramatic journey throughout the collection, though the more confessional poems (“On Asking My Lover Not to Move to London”) are balanced with meditations (“Theories of the Earth”) and observational poems set in public spaces, such as “Sherbet,” a standout poem in which the lonely speaker imagines the life of a man in a grocery store check-out line. By the end of the book, we feel as if we have inhabited this speaker’s mind, moving through all the areas of her world.
In short, The Naming of Strays is a collection that will stir your appetite and satisfy. Erin Elizabeth Smith creates a world of exquisite beauty, and though it may be plagued by uncertainty and loss, it is never mundane. You will want to read these poems over and over again.
Reviewed by Skyler LaLone
July 29, 2014
Erin Elizabeth Smith's The Naming of Strays is divided into sections according to different definitions of the word "stray" . What follows in each individual section are poems that loosely embrace those definitions. For instance, in the last section, the definition is the following: "stray: an animal that has strayed or wandered away from its flock, home, or owner." With this meaning in mind, one might expect that a stray, perhaps an alley cat, may at least make an appearance, but instead, Smith chooses to adapt the idea of a "stray" to human narrators who seemingly have strayed from past lives, past homes and past loves. For example, in "Closet Space" the narrator stares at her clothes, deciding that her closet is "plagiarized from other lives." In another poem, "On Learning to Be Okay" a speaker muses that she does not think "about spring/or how it feels/to be loved" but instead, chooses to find some solace in making "a thick pea soup" and listening "to the radiator/as it bangs/its way to life."
Some readers of Smith's book may consider her poems a bit quirky -- and certainly, with poems like "Winter" she is approaching old subjects with a fresh voice. In this particular poem, she personifies the season of winter as "a pony-tailed redhead/displeased with the undoing of her work." Winter, in this work, is hard and gritty: "She lights a cigarette, taps the ashes on the floor." Even when she speaks, she is all sass, saying, "Spring is my bitch. She'll come/but only when I tell her to."
But what I admire most about Smith is the way that she equates a physical place with abstract emotions. She travels from the Midwest, to eastern New York, to Mississippi -- one may think that this book is a collection of journeys, and indeed it's easy to see the wandering of both emotion and physical meanderings. For instance, in "On Being Erroneously Called a New Yorker Again" the speaker struggles with the meaning of the relationship between physical place and personal identity. In another poem, "Index of the Midwest" the speaker muses about the idea of escape when she says "If only there had been an escape hatch/in August's shorn field. One that falls/forever into this flat/and desperate black." And in still another poem, "Driving Next to Two Men I've Slept With" the narrator muses about personal pasts and tension in a single road trip.
A great read!
Some readers of Smith's book may consider her poems a bit quirky -- and certainly, with poems like "Winter" she is approaching old subjects with a fresh voice. In this particular poem, she personifies the season of winter as "a pony-tailed redhead/displeased with the undoing of her work." Winter, in this work, is hard and gritty: "She lights a cigarette, taps the ashes on the floor." Even when she speaks, she is all sass, saying, "Spring is my bitch. She'll come/but only when I tell her to."
But what I admire most about Smith is the way that she equates a physical place with abstract emotions. She travels from the Midwest, to eastern New York, to Mississippi -- one may think that this book is a collection of journeys, and indeed it's easy to see the wandering of both emotion and physical meanderings. For instance, in "On Being Erroneously Called a New Yorker Again" the speaker struggles with the meaning of the relationship between physical place and personal identity. In another poem, "Index of the Midwest" the speaker muses about the idea of escape when she says "If only there had been an escape hatch/in August's shorn field. One that falls/forever into this flat/and desperate black." And in still another poem, "Driving Next to Two Men I've Slept With" the narrator muses about personal pasts and tension in a single road trip.
A great read!
March 23, 2013
These poems are powerful in their sensual and erotic language. This book is about living in the South, about a love and deep respect for food and for creation, about sexuality and loneliness. A collection that I will return to again and again - the poet's version of the world is so lush and serene and beautiful, even in sadness.
August 19, 2014
I'm apparently in the minority here, but I wasn't impressed by The Naming of Strays. Solid poems, the occasional clever turn of phrase, but nothing grabbed me, as evidenced by the fact it took me over a month to read this because I'd put it down and didn't care enough to pick it back up. I'm not going to remember this tomorrow.
December 18, 2015
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews