Primer

This third collection from Smith (Appetite) is the kind of book one is tempted to call “unflinching,” except that, in fact, the poems seem to flinch all over—to recoil, in a manner that is thrillingly moving, from their self-exposure. In plain-spoken poems that come starkly to terms with the early formation of a gay identity and the legacy of a painful family life, Smith finds pleasure in pain and pain in pleasure: “My fist smashed the bone/ in his nose. A week before he’d stayed at my house,// tried to kiss me, touch my underwear.../.../ I like the way his lip opened under my fist./ I liked the way it felt to be a man.” Elsewhere, plenty of other demons are confronted, including suicidal tendencies (“Aaron Smith killed himself/ because he worried about parking./ I wish that was as funny as it sounds”) and illness: “When you were sick/ I made a list of people I wished would die/ instead./.../ ...I didn’t feel/ guilty or afraid. I knew words/ wouldn’t change a thing.” But the book circles back again and again to a father figure as reviled as he is beloved, a source of strength and pain. Smith struggles to clearly see himself and his relation to others in these poems; readers may find their paths illuminated by his flickering light. (Nov.)