What do you think?
Rate this book
A bonus
Poetry by the author of GRAND CENTRAL STATION and I SAT DOWN AND WEPT, with an Introduction by Jill Neville and drawings by Graham Dean.
- GenresPoetry
55 pages, Paperback
Published January 1, 1977
15 people want to read
About the author
Elizabeth Smart
18 books106 followersLibrarian’s note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name. This profile is for Elizabeth^^Smart.
Elizabeth Smart (December 27, 1913 – March 4, 1986) was a Canadian poet and novelist. Her book, By Grand Central Station I Sat Down and Wept, detailed her romance with the poet George Barker. She is the subject of the 1991 biography, By Heart: Elizabeth Smart a Life, by Rosemary Sullivan, and a film, Elizabeth Smart: On the Side of the Angels, produced by Maya Gallus.
Elizabeth Smart (December 27, 1913 – March 4, 1986) was a Canadian poet and novelist. Her book, By Grand Central Station I Sat Down and Wept, detailed her romance with the poet George Barker. She is the subject of the 1991 biography, By Heart: Elizabeth Smart a Life, by Rosemary Sullivan, and a film, Elizabeth Smart: On the Side of the Angels, produced by Maya Gallus.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
Read
February 17, 2026Smart with all her obsessions intact! Still contemplating nature as a whore decades down the road. A very challenging small collection, among which "The Useful Dead" and "Are Flowers Whores?" stand out for me. Worth repetition.
January 23, 2022
The Rhyme and the Rhyme
The rhyme and the rhyme
If the concentration is absolute
They obey the thought
With a little help afterwards.
But for wobbly concentration
The puzzle forms the strictness
Acts like iron lungs
Props to start up breathing.
One a mad pursuit.
One a sly strategy.
* * *
A Bonus
That day that I finished
A small piece
For an obscure magazine
I popped it in the box
And such a starry elation
Came over me
That I got whistled at in the street
For the first time in a long time.
I was dirty and roughly dressed
And had circled under my eyes
And far far from flirtation
But so full of completion
Of a deed duly done
An act of consummation
That the freedom and force it engendered
Shone and spun
Out of my old raincoat.
It must have looked like love
Or a fabulous free holiday
To the young men sauntering
Down Berwick Street
I still think this is most mysterious
For while I was writing it
It was gritty it felt like self-abuse
Constipation, desperately unsocial.
But done done done
Everything in the world
Flowed back
Like a huge bonus
* * *
In My Shattered Garden
In my shattered garden
I lie and cry.
Why?
I could scrub floors
And get a sense
Of something done
A neat
Achievement
But
I get up
And stumble on
And get slapped back.
I count my blessings
Many, many.
It is no use.
Back and forth
I pace
Carrying a deep despair
Like a fretful child.
There there, despair,
There there.
* * *
Winter Landscape
In the garden rotted bodies are fallen
Black leaves crashed
Asparagus pride decayed
Moss and creeping buttercup taking advantage
Of the mightier out-of-combat.
Still alive, birds hunched against hard times.
Burrowers, moles and mice and subterranean rats
Ravenous, ravage at the roots.
* * *
Hangover
Diabolical Dionysius
Last night egged us on
To raze the sacred temples.
The god has gone.
Now troupes of mini-builders
Using their mini road drills
With puritanical fury
And vindicative zeal
Riot round my temples
Needed for enduring
This frail day.
* * *
Blake's Sunflower
1
Why did Blake say
'Sunflower weary of time'?
Every time I see them
they seem to say
Now! with a crash
of cymbals!
Very pleased
and positive
and absolutely delighting
in their own round brightness.
2
Sorry, Blake!
Now I see what you mean.
Storms and frost have battered
their bright delight
and though they are still upright
nothing could say rejection
more than their weary
disillusioned
hanging heads.
The rhyme and the rhyme
If the concentration is absolute
They obey the thought
With a little help afterwards.
But for wobbly concentration
The puzzle forms the strictness
Acts like iron lungs
Props to start up breathing.
One a mad pursuit.
One a sly strategy.
* * *
A Bonus
That day that I finished
A small piece
For an obscure magazine
I popped it in the box
And such a starry elation
Came over me
That I got whistled at in the street
For the first time in a long time.
I was dirty and roughly dressed
And had circled under my eyes
And far far from flirtation
But so full of completion
Of a deed duly done
An act of consummation
That the freedom and force it engendered
Shone and spun
Out of my old raincoat.
It must have looked like love
Or a fabulous free holiday
To the young men sauntering
Down Berwick Street
I still think this is most mysterious
For while I was writing it
It was gritty it felt like self-abuse
Constipation, desperately unsocial.
But done done done
Everything in the world
Flowed back
Like a huge bonus
* * *
In My Shattered Garden
In my shattered garden
I lie and cry.
Why?
I could scrub floors
And get a sense
Of something done
A neat
Achievement
But
I get up
And stumble on
And get slapped back.
I count my blessings
Many, many.
It is no use.
Back and forth
I pace
Carrying a deep despair
Like a fretful child.
There there, despair,
There there.
* * *
Winter Landscape
In the garden rotted bodies are fallen
Black leaves crashed
Asparagus pride decayed
Moss and creeping buttercup taking advantage
Of the mightier out-of-combat.
Still alive, birds hunched against hard times.
Burrowers, moles and mice and subterranean rats
Ravenous, ravage at the roots.
* * *
Hangover
Diabolical Dionysius
Last night egged us on
To raze the sacred temples.
The god has gone.
Now troupes of mini-builders
Using their mini road drills
With puritanical fury
And vindicative zeal
Riot round my temples
Needed for enduring
This frail day.
* * *
Blake's Sunflower
1
Why did Blake say
'Sunflower weary of time'?
Every time I see them
they seem to say
Now! with a crash
of cymbals!
Very pleased
and positive
and absolutely delighting
in their own round brightness.
2
Sorry, Blake!
Now I see what you mean.
Storms and frost have battered
their bright delight
and though they are still upright
nothing could say rejection
more than their weary
disillusioned
hanging heads.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews