Aaron Smith. Roaring Forties (IPG, dist.), $15.95 trade paper (250p) ISBN 978-1-938901-11-9
Following a messy divorce, a bad rebound romance, and a drug dealer's death threat, Smith heads to India on an impulse, aiming to "study yoga…bathe in the Ganges…try to get a part in a Bollywood film, and party on New Year's Eve on the beaches of...
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Aaron Smith. Univ. of Pittsburgh, $15.95 trade paper (104p) ISBN 978-0-8229-6434-6
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
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Aaron Smith. Univ. of Pitt, $17 (80p) ISBN 978-0-8229-6596-1
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...
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Aaron Smith. Univ. of Pittsburgh, $18 trade paper (88p) ISBN 978-0-8229-6704-0
“I’m tired of trying to be/ a good person,” Smith writes in his visceral, tender, and compassionate latest (after The Book of Daniel). Smith’s elegiac writing reveals a fervent desire to test the limits of one’s empathy and understanding, resisting...
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