The Book of Daniel

The direct and vulnerable fourth collection from Smith (Blue on Blue Ground) explores queer identity, masculinity, and mortality, informed by the American obsession with celebrity in its various forms (“My Brad should be Pitt. My Daniel// Craig. My Hardy/ Thomas and Tom”). Smith exalts in sonic play and striking candor, recasting the confessional mode by refusing self-importance. Poems such as “A Critical History of Contemporary American Poetry,” which, among less flattering comparisons, likens Elizabeth Bishop’s critical reputation to Meryl Streep’s, reveal the poet’s impulse for satire in order to deflate literary gravitas. The speakers here exhibit their neuroses with a humorous self-awareness: “I’m mean to men// with perfect throats who take selfies in the mirror/ at the gym: let doors close on them in stores,// never say excuse me if I bump into them.” In “Cosmopolitan Greetings,” the speaker admits: “I’m not afraid to go to the dentist because you’re only naked from the neck up.” These antiheroic personas refuse pat epiphanies yet draw affecting meaning from painful experiences (such as encounters with homophobia) and news reports that show humanity at its worst. Smith’s irreverence elsewhere provides credibility to his political outrage and genuine pathos to the narrative of his mother’s cancer diagnosis. This newest collection offers an expansive, diverse consideration of identity and grief. (Oct.)