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Split the Lark: Selected Poems
The poems of Split the Lark record one man's mission to find the mythic in the social, the crucial in the casual, the supernatural in the natural. R. T. Smith's precise images and quietly modulated music cast a wide net, engaging Native American customs and history, the forested mysteries of the American South, the habits of birds and one traveler's ruminations on the people, conflicts and stories of Ireland. This gathering of poems scanning two decades displays, as Eamon Grennan said of Smith's collection Trespasser, "a language at once taut and sensuous, speedy but carefully controlled."
- GenresPoetry
96 pages, Paperback
First published March 1, 2000
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
August 12, 2021
Certain acts survive. I recall
one rural Georgia scene:
the cottonmouth that abandoned
the Flint River bottom
to inhabit the cotton field
and sleep among the dry weevils
inherited the hoe's steel
blade arcing across the sun.
Grandma clove the moccasin,
declaring under her homespun bonnet,
"There, sir. Serves you right."
The black spade head
yawned a coffin's satin,
thrust fangs in the dirt,
shot the tongue's
impotent lightning.
from A Victory
R.T. Smith's Split the Lark: Selected Poems pulls from several of his collections and, as is usually the case with such publications, the poems vary widely. Smith employs short lines and vivid imagery, often examining profundity with an illuminated description drawn from nature. He has sections on birds, wood carvers, on his time in Ireland, etc. With each new section, we encounter new themes. While I really enjoy much of his verse, I found the changes in direction somewhat distracting.
I also want to quote a poem where Smith uses stanzaic breaks which disrupt the thought of the poem. Odd stops occur at the end of lines, between stanzas--yet, the weaving of this single sentence is fascinating.
As if some spider gone
scientific at twilight
has decided to snare
a herd of sparrows, I
raise my web between
hillside birches and
hope for a low moon
and scuttling in the brush
to startle the birds,
that I might hear
the wild wings thrashing
unharmed in nylon mesh,
that I might inspect
each hostage to verify
myths about size,
migration, the weight
of autumn feathers.
from Mist Net
one rural Georgia scene:
the cottonmouth that abandoned
the Flint River bottom
to inhabit the cotton field
and sleep among the dry weevils
inherited the hoe's steel
blade arcing across the sun.
Grandma clove the moccasin,
declaring under her homespun bonnet,
"There, sir. Serves you right."
The black spade head
yawned a coffin's satin,
thrust fangs in the dirt,
shot the tongue's
impotent lightning.
from A Victory
R.T. Smith's Split the Lark: Selected Poems pulls from several of his collections and, as is usually the case with such publications, the poems vary widely. Smith employs short lines and vivid imagery, often examining profundity with an illuminated description drawn from nature. He has sections on birds, wood carvers, on his time in Ireland, etc. With each new section, we encounter new themes. While I really enjoy much of his verse, I found the changes in direction somewhat distracting.
I also want to quote a poem where Smith uses stanzaic breaks which disrupt the thought of the poem. Odd stops occur at the end of lines, between stanzas--yet, the weaving of this single sentence is fascinating.
As if some spider gone
scientific at twilight
has decided to snare
a herd of sparrows, I
raise my web between
hillside birches and
hope for a low moon
and scuttling in the brush
to startle the birds,
that I might hear
the wild wings thrashing
unharmed in nylon mesh,
that I might inspect
each hostage to verify
myths about size,
migration, the weight
of autumn feathers.
from Mist Net
Displaying 1 of 1 review