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River Ghosts
River Ghosts is about love, loss, the natural world, and the passage of time. It explores family and memory, the ghosts that dance through our minds, and the ghosts that whisper from cobblestones, rivers, and houses. It is a book birthed in the grief for a parent and the world during COVID-19. Nevertheless, it also celebrates joy and laughter, and recognizes that though nature’s beauty is transitory, it recurs again and again. Spring follows winter, and new flowers bloom. We see the light of long-dead stars, even as new stars are born.
This book was compiled after the author’s mother died of COVID-19 in April 2020, although some of the poems were written before the pandemic and lockdown. The compilation is a tribute to life and love, and an exploration of mourning and remembrance
This book was compiled after the author’s mother died of COVID-19 in April 2020, although some of the poems were written before the pandemic and lockdown. The compilation is a tribute to life and love, and an exploration of mourning and remembrance
- GenresPoetry
76 pages, Kindle Edition
Published April 8, 2022
7 people want to read
About the author
Merril D. Smith
25 books9 followersI am a poet and independent scholar. My most recently published book is Sexual Harassment: A Reference Handbook. I'm currently working on two poetry collections and have published poetry in various journals. I'm one of the hosts of dVerse Poets' Pub
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Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews
February 20, 2023
The first poem in this collection shares the title of the book, “River Ghosts,” which swept me along (like a river) on a pilgrimage to reconnect with the ghosts of our ancestors. I sensed the author was laying the groundwork to embrace the memories that hovered between the liminal places in the past and present.
This book is Smith’s debut poetry collection, published by Nightingale and Sparrow Press. The author’s child, Jay Smith, created the book’s cover. I loved the family connections highlighted throughout the book, dedicated to the memory of the author’s mother, Sylvia L. Schreiber. These memories flow through the book, from mother to daughter, onward, ever flowing through the generations.
Smith crafted a variety of forms, including free verse, metered and rhyming verse, syllabic, and prose poetry. Much of this author’s strength resonates in her word-play and vivid imagery.
Smith’s poetry varied, which made this book a most satisfying read. She writes of the historical plight of women at the hands of men, “always men,” ghosts from the past and present, and the inspiration she finds from the stars, and so much more…
But it is the more personal pieces of poetry I found most endearing. The family memories—flowing from mothers to daughters was something that resonated strongly with me.
Through Smith’s eyes, I got a glimpse of the world I had not experienced before. In fact, I read the book twice. But this is a collection of poetry to be read more than once or twice. I know I’ll revisit it often. I think you will too!
This book is Smith’s debut poetry collection, published by Nightingale and Sparrow Press. The author’s child, Jay Smith, created the book’s cover. I loved the family connections highlighted throughout the book, dedicated to the memory of the author’s mother, Sylvia L. Schreiber. These memories flow through the book, from mother to daughter, onward, ever flowing through the generations.
Smith crafted a variety of forms, including free verse, metered and rhyming verse, syllabic, and prose poetry. Much of this author’s strength resonates in her word-play and vivid imagery.
Smith’s poetry varied, which made this book a most satisfying read. She writes of the historical plight of women at the hands of men, “always men,” ghosts from the past and present, and the inspiration she finds from the stars, and so much more…
But it is the more personal pieces of poetry I found most endearing. The family memories—flowing from mothers to daughters was something that resonated strongly with me.
Through Smith’s eyes, I got a glimpse of the world I had not experienced before. In fact, I read the book twice. But this is a collection of poetry to be read more than once or twice. I know I’ll revisit it often. I think you will too!
June 20, 2022
I had to force myself not to read this in one fell swoop. In order to savour each poem, I didn't read more than 3-5 per day.
I've got to know Merril's poetry through her blog. She has taught me many forms and encouraged me so there was no way I was not going to indulge in this little gem.
The imagery she creates through words is poignant, beautiful, sorrowful, joyful - it runs the gamut.
I know I shall be returning again and again to re-read and will find even more with each one.
Loved this book.
If I were to criticize one thing, and it has zero to do with the author, it's the page structure. Very bizarre to find just one line on the next page, (or the note relating to said poem) especially when one has to turn said page.
I've got to know Merril's poetry through her blog. She has taught me many forms and encouraged me so there was no way I was not going to indulge in this little gem.
The imagery she creates through words is poignant, beautiful, sorrowful, joyful - it runs the gamut.
I know I shall be returning again and again to re-read and will find even more with each one.
Loved this book.
If I were to criticize one thing, and it has zero to do with the author, it's the page structure. Very bizarre to find just one line on the next page, (or the note relating to said poem) especially when one has to turn said page.
January 27, 2023
I can’t remember when I picked up this book of freeform poetry, but I finally got around to reading it, and I’m so glad I did. I highly recommend it.
The book contains about 70 poems. I read it over a few evenings, savoring the quiet mood and tone and depth of the feelings this collection conveys. There are poems about joyous moments of gratefulness and love, and poems straight from the imagination. But my favorites were those that struck me as reflective, exploring loss, tender memories, and some of the harder moments of finding one’s way. These are the author’s “ghosts,” and I found them relatable as well as beautifully penned. Here’s one such poem:
Dark Matter
How do we see the unseen?
A ghostly presence felt,
this dark path between stars
The Milky Way, a pearly spiral,
and we with limited vision,
star-created, star-drawn,
unable to see the tenebrous beauty
of bent light.
The book contains about 70 poems. I read it over a few evenings, savoring the quiet mood and tone and depth of the feelings this collection conveys. There are poems about joyous moments of gratefulness and love, and poems straight from the imagination. But my favorites were those that struck me as reflective, exploring loss, tender memories, and some of the harder moments of finding one’s way. These are the author’s “ghosts,” and I found them relatable as well as beautifully penned. Here’s one such poem:
Dark Matter
How do we see the unseen?
A ghostly presence felt,
this dark path between stars
The Milky Way, a pearly spiral,
and we with limited vision,
star-created, star-drawn,
unable to see the tenebrous beauty
of bent light.
February 2, 2023
“River Ghosts” poetry evokes a depth of emotion through beautiful imagery. I enjoyed all the poems I read, and here are a few that touched me. “Too late,/watch the last butterfly/in a shimmering glow/of gold and tangerine”—Observe, And Again. “Once stars shimmered brighter in/the night,/and you left your handprint, a/symbol on the wall,”—Handprint. “and we reach up, swallow them-/then filled with honeyed light/we whisper in glimmering tones,/leap-and fly.”—Dreams and Stars. “Angel-breath flowers in the morning/and soft blush-clouds sail/in dancing rhythm/waking all the ifs—/and so—/let ghosts fly.”—The Secret of Poetry Stars. These are just some of the ones I highlighted. A wonderful collection meant to be read over and over, and I can easily recommend it to poetry lovers.
May 27, 2022
Merril Smith's poetry in her collection here soars, stings, and sings. I'm not a poet, but I certainly know how to enjoy poetry that speaks to me and to poets and non-poets alike. Smith's poetry has been a favorite of mine for years, since I follow her blog and read her poems out loud weekly. Each one touches me in some way. To have a small book of her poems in this collection of River Ghosts is a gift. Smith's use of words, of the poetic form, of lyricism and introspection, of Nature and wondering/wondering on eternity, are elegant and thought provoking. I'll be re-reading this book of poems for a long time.
June 21, 2022
The first poem in this collection–“River Ghosts”–sets up the reader for a journey into the past and present, into if and when, with “echoes / over the river.” The reader is invited to “Observe again.” but also to “Now solve the problem.” And that’s just in the first two poems. Smith might not intend for the reader to “solve the problem” presented in all the poems, but she definitely intends (in my humble opinion) for the reader to observe again and again, whether she is observing “a train to hell,” a first love or dark matter. Like a river, these poems meander–at turns edging toward grief (“our mother stopped eating before she died, / now I hear her ghost-laugh in my dreams”), then sisterly fun (“we rubbed the laughing Buddha’s belly for good luck”), but always listing toward the mysteries of the universe, encompassing life and death:
Once some brilliant star breathed time
in the after-wake of explosion and danced across a universe
exploring eternity
The poems were compiled after Smith’s mother died of COVID-19 in April 2020, and so a number of the poems feature her mother in her youth and old age. She (and others long-deceased) also features as a ghost; not a scary, haunted ghost, but:
Not living,
no longer here,
yet not completely gone.
In her poem “Family Ghosts,” Smith makes clear her calling and intent:
Subsisting, existing
their ghost voices sing to me
I hear them
I feel them–ancestors calling me,
this is what we do, generate, create the songs of our hearts forever.
These are poems I will be turning to often as I seek comfort when my own family members become “not living, / no longer here.” I will find comfort in knowing that they are “not completely gone.” Smith demonstrates how a writer could (and, perhaps, should) allow ancestors to speak through her, echoing through the years, so we always remember not just when but if.
Once some brilliant star breathed time
in the after-wake of explosion and danced across a universe
exploring eternity
The poems were compiled after Smith’s mother died of COVID-19 in April 2020, and so a number of the poems feature her mother in her youth and old age. She (and others long-deceased) also features as a ghost; not a scary, haunted ghost, but:
Not living,
no longer here,
yet not completely gone.
In her poem “Family Ghosts,” Smith makes clear her calling and intent:
Subsisting, existing
their ghost voices sing to me
I hear them
I feel them–ancestors calling me,
this is what we do, generate, create the songs of our hearts forever.
These are poems I will be turning to often as I seek comfort when my own family members become “not living, / no longer here.” I will find comfort in knowing that they are “not completely gone.” Smith demonstrates how a writer could (and, perhaps, should) allow ancestors to speak through her, echoing through the years, so we always remember not just when but if.
May 23, 2022
’ve been awaiting the debut of Merril D. Smith’s first collection of poetry, River Ghosts, because I’ve been a fan of her poetry for quite some time. I am certainly not disappointed.
These poems are built upon the foundation of Smith’s knowledge, as a professional historian, of history and also of myth (especially the ekphrastic poems). Sometimes the poems refer to Jewish history. “The Pogrom” describes Smith’s grandmother’s experience as a child and insists that “the wisdom of generations / yet flows through my blood” (17). She refers to this subject again in “Family Ghosts” where she not only hears, but feels, her ancestors calling her.
The poems of River Ghosts have been persuaded into soulful singing by Smith’s love of beautiful language sounds, as if she won’t complete a poem until she’s managed to eke beauty out of the subject. In “Moon Landing,” she writes of a memory of the July moon landing in the time of her childhood. She uses the image of the moon’s surface to create a stunning metaphor for remembering:
Now—ensorcelled by moon-glow—
I plummet back, landing my time-rocket
on the rocky surface of memory. (11)
The ghosts of this collection create a chorus of voices: Smith’s mother who died of Covid-19, her father who passed away earlier, Jewish voices from the Holocaust, those from our cultural stories, and even the phantoms of childhood. These ghosts glaze the poems with an elegiac tone: “a lonesome sound of longing, / a lament for what once was” (63). Nevertheless, the book itself is more hopeful than sad since the emphasis is on noting the grace of life: “we are transients / sailing a timeless sea of dreams” (65). Smith’s first poetry collection is a triumph of beauty in the face of sorrows.
These poems are built upon the foundation of Smith’s knowledge, as a professional historian, of history and also of myth (especially the ekphrastic poems). Sometimes the poems refer to Jewish history. “The Pogrom” describes Smith’s grandmother’s experience as a child and insists that “the wisdom of generations / yet flows through my blood” (17). She refers to this subject again in “Family Ghosts” where she not only hears, but feels, her ancestors calling her.
The poems of River Ghosts have been persuaded into soulful singing by Smith’s love of beautiful language sounds, as if she won’t complete a poem until she’s managed to eke beauty out of the subject. In “Moon Landing,” she writes of a memory of the July moon landing in the time of her childhood. She uses the image of the moon’s surface to create a stunning metaphor for remembering:
Now—ensorcelled by moon-glow—
I plummet back, landing my time-rocket
on the rocky surface of memory. (11)
The ghosts of this collection create a chorus of voices: Smith’s mother who died of Covid-19, her father who passed away earlier, Jewish voices from the Holocaust, those from our cultural stories, and even the phantoms of childhood. These ghosts glaze the poems with an elegiac tone: “a lonesome sound of longing, / a lament for what once was” (63). Nevertheless, the book itself is more hopeful than sad since the emphasis is on noting the grace of life: “we are transients / sailing a timeless sea of dreams” (65). Smith’s first poetry collection is a triumph of beauty in the face of sorrows.
June 24, 2022
A beautiful, moving, collection of dreamy verse! In "Dark Matter" Merril asks, "How do we see the unseen? A ghostly presence felt, this dark path between stars." The reader rejoices with each step as we move with the river ghosts, floating and flying, remembering "nighttime journeys" we are left "glistening and incandescent, open-eyed and wiser."
May 1, 2023
Captivating, Moving
Reading these I felt threaded into a deeper time span, doused in wonder that became grief that became memories, my own chiming against those of the poems. This feels like a collection to keep close for repeat reading.
Reading these I felt threaded into a deeper time span, doused in wonder that became grief that became memories, my own chiming against those of the poems. This feels like a collection to keep close for repeat reading.
July 28, 2023
...our griefs and joys are all the same, and they live in our liminal spaces
There are two things I need to mention before I tell you what I liked:
* I approached this book with some background knowledge I read in an interview about this Author: about how one day in April during the pandemic, one of the Author’s cats died and how at the end of that week, the Author’s dear mother passed away. And that due to COVID, she and her family couldn’t be with her beloved.
I cannot imagine what that must be like, but I feel encouraged that instead of letting the heaviness sink her, the Author chose to call forth stored memories and celebrate the good times that still exist, if only in her liminal space.
* The Author’s child created the cover art for this book: a stunning story in and of itself. Apt for a collection that celebrates a thing remembered fondly: Like those liminal spaces that reside in the nostalgic places in our memories, a river meanders through landscapes, and as one who sometimes “feels” and communes with shadows and ghosts, the title and theme of this collection called to me.
River Ghosts by Merril Smith is a poetry collection brimming like a river on its way to the ocean of nostalgia. And we all know nostalgia. Through this collection of imagist poetry--none of us knows what the poet was going through; we cannot readily understand the allusion of each as they belong to her alone--we know we are included in them because of the universal threads that resonate with us.
We've all experienced personal losses and learned from our sensitivities that our griefs and joys are all the same. And it’s this sensitivity that moves our spirit and puts us right there to appreciate and observe through this Author’s recollection.
It's a book birthed from grief that also takes us dancing in joy--a tribute to mourning and remembrances, life and love that remains as long as memory lasts.
It is difficult to pick a favorite from Smith's stunning River Ghosts debut poetry collection published by Nightingale and Sparrow Press--there is so much to love!
But let me mention two: The title poem, "River Ghosts," informs this collection so well and prepares the reader for what's to come: Ghosts sitting in the grass/the gull's laugh echoes/over the river/remembered in whispers (by that grass where ghosts in the long ago once sat)
And "Half-Concealed and Half-Revealed." It asks us directly, "How will we remember these days/of grief and sorrow for our world/ ...the world gets hotter/the trees reach up/to light/and down to darkness/half-revealed, half concealed/ thoughts glimmer/like tears/
And then, the Author reminds us that her mother's laugh still echoes, "Here."
Gorgeous! I highly recommend River Ghosts by Merril Smith. Please consider getting the book to find out what ghosts lie between these two that stand as bookends.
There are two things I need to mention before I tell you what I liked:
* I approached this book with some background knowledge I read in an interview about this Author: about how one day in April during the pandemic, one of the Author’s cats died and how at the end of that week, the Author’s dear mother passed away. And that due to COVID, she and her family couldn’t be with her beloved.
I cannot imagine what that must be like, but I feel encouraged that instead of letting the heaviness sink her, the Author chose to call forth stored memories and celebrate the good times that still exist, if only in her liminal space.
* The Author’s child created the cover art for this book: a stunning story in and of itself. Apt for a collection that celebrates a thing remembered fondly: Like those liminal spaces that reside in the nostalgic places in our memories, a river meanders through landscapes, and as one who sometimes “feels” and communes with shadows and ghosts, the title and theme of this collection called to me.
River Ghosts by Merril Smith is a poetry collection brimming like a river on its way to the ocean of nostalgia. And we all know nostalgia. Through this collection of imagist poetry--none of us knows what the poet was going through; we cannot readily understand the allusion of each as they belong to her alone--we know we are included in them because of the universal threads that resonate with us.
We've all experienced personal losses and learned from our sensitivities that our griefs and joys are all the same. And it’s this sensitivity that moves our spirit and puts us right there to appreciate and observe through this Author’s recollection.
It's a book birthed from grief that also takes us dancing in joy--a tribute to mourning and remembrances, life and love that remains as long as memory lasts.
It is difficult to pick a favorite from Smith's stunning River Ghosts debut poetry collection published by Nightingale and Sparrow Press--there is so much to love!
But let me mention two: The title poem, "River Ghosts," informs this collection so well and prepares the reader for what's to come: Ghosts sitting in the grass/the gull's laugh echoes/over the river/remembered in whispers (by that grass where ghosts in the long ago once sat)
And "Half-Concealed and Half-Revealed." It asks us directly, "How will we remember these days/of grief and sorrow for our world/ ...the world gets hotter/the trees reach up/to light/and down to darkness/half-revealed, half concealed/ thoughts glimmer/like tears/
And then, the Author reminds us that her mother's laugh still echoes, "Here."
Gorgeous! I highly recommend River Ghosts by Merril Smith. Please consider getting the book to find out what ghosts lie between these two that stand as bookends.
June 20, 2022
The first poem in this collection--"River Ghosts"--sets up the reader for a journey into the past and present, into if and when, with "echoes / over the river." The reader is invited to "Observe again." but also to "Now solve the problem." And that's just in the first two poems. Smith might not intend for the reader to "solve the problem" presented in all the poems, but she definitely intends (in my humble opinion) for the reader to observe again and again, whether she is observing "a train to hell," a first love or dark matter. Like a river, these poems meander--at turns edging toward grief ("our mother stopped eating before she died, / now I hear her ghost-laugh in my dreams"), then sisterly fun ("we rubbed the laughing Buddha's belly for good luck"), but always listing toward the mysteries of the universe, encompassing life and death:
Once some brilliant star breathed time
in the after-wake of explosion and danced across a universe
exploring eternity
The poems were compiled after Smith's mother died of COVID-19 in April 2020, and so a number of the poems feature her mother in her youth and old age. She (and others long-deceased) also features as a ghost; not a scary, haunted ghost, but:
Not living,
no longer here,
yet not completely gone.
In her poem "Family Ghosts," Smith makes clear her calling and intent:
Subsisting, existing
their ghost voices sing to me
I hear them
I feel them--ancestors calling me,
this is what we do, generate, create the songs of our hearts forever.
These are poems I will be turning to often as I seek comfort when my own family members become "not living, / no longer here." I will find comfort in knowing that they are "not completely gone." Smith demonstrates how a writer could (and, perhaps, should) allow ancestors to speak through her, echoing through the years, so we always remember not just when but if.
Once some brilliant star breathed time
in the after-wake of explosion and danced across a universe
exploring eternity
The poems were compiled after Smith's mother died of COVID-19 in April 2020, and so a number of the poems feature her mother in her youth and old age. She (and others long-deceased) also features as a ghost; not a scary, haunted ghost, but:
Not living,
no longer here,
yet not completely gone.
In her poem "Family Ghosts," Smith makes clear her calling and intent:
Subsisting, existing
their ghost voices sing to me
I hear them
I feel them--ancestors calling me,
this is what we do, generate, create the songs of our hearts forever.
These are poems I will be turning to often as I seek comfort when my own family members become "not living, / no longer here." I will find comfort in knowing that they are "not completely gone." Smith demonstrates how a writer could (and, perhaps, should) allow ancestors to speak through her, echoing through the years, so we always remember not just when but if.
October 17, 2023
River Ghosts is the perfect name for this beautiful collection, which gives the reader glimpses into the poet's life in the present, shadowed by memories, and coloured by traditions and behaviours passed down by her parents, and the ancestors that came before them. It is, in essence, an insight into the factors that make the poet who she is, and that have shaped her thoughts, ideas, and actions.
I found the ideas of loss contained in this book, interwoven with the concepts of long-lasting memories and loved ones living on through us, their offspring, compelling and delightful. For me, it made the overwhelming thought of the losses that must come, more bearable. Love, and the family traditions and behaviours we continue to honour, and pass down to our own children and grandchildren, bind us strongly to those who came before and to those who will come after. I love that idea.
A few examples of beautiful stanzas and/or lines:
"a tiny glove in the street,
the small hand grows colder
now unclasped from a larger one."
From Observe, And Again
Above and about, dreams soar -
I pluck one from a thousand -
of red petals crushed beneath rocks
after a storm, like blood drops growing, glowing"
From Almost, and Never
"Once some brilliant star breathed time
in the after-wake of explosion and danced across a universe
exploring eternity"
From And If Always Lives
This poetry collection is a wonderful investment of time and mental energy.
I found the ideas of loss contained in this book, interwoven with the concepts of long-lasting memories and loved ones living on through us, their offspring, compelling and delightful. For me, it made the overwhelming thought of the losses that must come, more bearable. Love, and the family traditions and behaviours we continue to honour, and pass down to our own children and grandchildren, bind us strongly to those who came before and to those who will come after. I love that idea.
A few examples of beautiful stanzas and/or lines:
"a tiny glove in the street,
the small hand grows colder
now unclasped from a larger one."
From Observe, And Again
Above and about, dreams soar -
I pluck one from a thousand -
of red petals crushed beneath rocks
after a storm, like blood drops growing, glowing"
From Almost, and Never
"Once some brilliant star breathed time
in the after-wake of explosion and danced across a universe
exploring eternity"
From And If Always Lives
This poetry collection is a wonderful investment of time and mental energy.
June 13, 2023
"How will we remember these days
of grief and sorrow for our world--"
I bookmarked so many pages in "River Ghosts" that it's impossible to name one poem as my favorite. The author blends the ghosts of history and personal life with images of the natural world and the cosmos in a way that weaves a thread between all of us to embody the circles of life, death, and re/birth.
That connection is what holds us together during times of instability and loss, which seem to be nearly all that the universe has to offer us in recent times. How to speak of those two years when we were hidden from ourselves, the world, each other? Both "half-concealed and half-revealed", the layers of continuity with past and present are what enable us to live as if the future will, indeed, arrive.
of grief and sorrow for our world--"
I bookmarked so many pages in "River Ghosts" that it's impossible to name one poem as my favorite. The author blends the ghosts of history and personal life with images of the natural world and the cosmos in a way that weaves a thread between all of us to embody the circles of life, death, and re/birth.
That connection is what holds us together during times of instability and loss, which seem to be nearly all that the universe has to offer us in recent times. How to speak of those two years when we were hidden from ourselves, the world, each other? Both "half-concealed and half-revealed", the layers of continuity with past and present are what enable us to live as if the future will, indeed, arrive.
Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews