Everything Neon

by Bud Smith

From Bud Smith, author of Tollbooth, comes a vibrant collection of poetry, Everything Neon, that's a tribute to a city, and a love, like no other. It'll make you feel like falling in love is a good idea and that people are generally beautiful to each other.

Genres: Poetry

182 pages, Kindle Edition

First published March 11, 2014

About the author

Bud Smith is the author of Teenager (Tyrant Book), Double Bird (Maudlin House), WORK (CCM), Dust Bunny City (Disorder Press), among others. He works heavy construction, and lives in Jersey City, NJ.

Reviews

[Aaron Dietz · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a book of poetry for everyone--for both poets and people who hate poetry. In this book you will find Bud's heart, as well as the hearts of the people he knows. His neighbors, co-workers, and friends are all here, in this book, and they are all flawed and charming. Loveable despite all. You will hear them through the walls of the book. And you know them already, from having lived.

Especially recommended for fans of Bukowski.

[Eduardo · Rating 3 out of 5]

Sometimes it felt like I had broken into Bud Smith's room and stolen his diary, and I didn't even feel bad about doing it because much of it was unintelligible to me, like a private joke I wasn't privy to. I appreciate the honesty but at the end of the day I subscribe to Ted Kooser's philosophy that poetry is communication and connection, not concealment and mystification.

[Michael Maxwell · Rating 5 out of 5]

Everything Neon ~ Bud Smith (Marginalia Press 2014) is the best book of poetry I’ve read in a long time. Bud Smith unleashes his keen powers of observation and ability to describe contemporary life in narrative prose that takes the reader on a stream of consciousness magical mystery tour.

Rarely do I want to go back and start rereading a book right after finishing it, but I did with Everything Neon. For me it was like listening to one of my favorite vinyl albums that left me wanting to immediately flip it over, lay that needle right back in the groove of the first song, and do it all again.

Bud Smith writes poems that I wish I had written. He makes it look easy. Maybe it is for him, but these are poems that only Bud Smith can write. Bud Smith is a total original who is as comfortable in his own skin as he is with his own authentic voice. He exhibits a high degree of self awareness, but writes with a zen-like unselfconsciousness. The poems in Everything Neon are rendered with unstudied freshness and spontaneity and are never over worked.It’s like he’s on your living room couch and you’re just having a laid back, casual conversation.

Everything Neon is a collection of epistolary love poems and reflections on people and a sense of place. Smith’s poems somehow have a meandering way that manages to transform the everyday mundane into a transcendental experience. Everything Neon contains personal reflections on human intimacy integrated with, and somehow juxtaposed to, the ebbs and flows of living in a present day New York City neighborhood. Bud Smith ruminates on the day-to-day of urban living in the way that nature poets might describe the natural environment.

Intimacies shared with his lover are interwoven with reflections on finding and keeping a parking place or remembering where his car is parked, impressions of living in a pre-war Manhattan apartment building with all its noises and quirks and the idiosyncratic behavior of neighbors in close quarters. It’s also about the interaction of nature with his city; with references to the “moon scraping the tops of buildings”, the “silver river”, the storms of winter, the heat of summer and passing of the seasons.

However, don’t be fooled by what might, at first glance, appear to be minimalism or even simplicity. While Everything Neon may feel as comfortable as your favorite pair of jeans, the poems reveal hidden depth and subtle layers of nuance. Everything Neon is a celebration of being alive and fully present and the work resonates with me for the same reasons as the work of Gary Snyder, and (Hell yeah!) Walt Whitman. The poems in Everything Neon have a funky feel and a songwriter’s soul.

Smith writes with the sensibilities of a photographer and a film maker. Bud Smith’s narrative prose manages to take us inside his head so we can see through his eyes. Everything Neon is also about compassion, humility, humanity, ironic humor, a keen sense of the absurd, and a sense of optimism with hope for redemption. Smith is a prolific writer and a ball of fire with multiple collaborative projects in the works at any given time. You can expect a lot more from Bud Smith, but Everything Neon is as good a place to start as any.

[James · Rating 5 out of 5]

Everything Neon catalogues the magic, mania, and minutia of everyday life in New York City, and the poems run the gamut of comical, grindingly realistic, and quietly romantic. The collection very much matches the tone of the city, I feel, since any given day could bring anything, everything, and moments of peace can come in flashing fleeting pauses in between the rush of life or you can have whole days of lying in bed daydreaming with the one you love. Bud is a poet without pretention and can work the word in a lot of effective ways: in one poem he’s a storyteller, the next an observer of the ephemeral and surreal, the next he’s cracking open the shell of the apartment next door, the woman walking down the street, the street vendor and bus driver, letting you see inside along with him. It’s a grand collection, beautifully designed and packaged, and I highly recommend it.

[Corissa · Rating 5 out of 5]

Bud Smith's love of New York and Spout comes out in beautiful and interesting poems in this collection. The images are both interesting, fun and accessible. Smith shows that poems, like love in its purest form, doesn't have to be heavy handed or pretentious to be real and touching. I recommend this book to people who like poems, but also to those who don't - because we may have found the bridge between the two. I defy any person to not have at least one poem in this collection speak to you!

[TM · Rating 5 out of 5]

A fresh breath, urban lyrics, tender without being sappy

The poems in this collection, at their best, are built on arresting images that stop the reader cold -- while the images themselves roll on into your back brain and from there into infinity. The feel and tone will resonate long after reading these poems. Well worth the read!

[Shaun Bokhari]

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