Brightwood: Poems

by R.T. Smith

Written in the gothic tradition of James Dickey’s Buckdancer’s Choice, Brightwood contains thirty-eight poems set in the American South. This intellectual and emotionally powerful collection is an interplay of southern music, religion, and culture with nature. Driven by memories of life in the rural, segregated South, the poems seek out beauty in an attempt to stave off loneliness, pain, and loss. The lyrics are moving, the language crackles, and the past haunts every verse.

Genres: Poetry

72 pages, Paperback

First published December 1, 2003

Reviews

[Diann Blakely]

One of the South's most prolific writers, R.T. Smith will see two new collections of verse published this year, THE HOLLOW LOG LOUNGE and BRIGHTWOOD. These are books of homecoming, in a way, since Smith’s previous two volumes, MESSENGER and TRESPASSER, sprang largely from his experiences in Ireland. The Emerald Isle seems to possess a special hold on Southern poets, and it’s often pointed out that the 20th century’s greatest literary flowerings took place contemporaneously here and in Ireland. Nonetheless, Smith always remains conscious of two paradoxes: feeling at home in a place where he will always be a foreigner, despite his own blood ancestry, and knowing that Ireland’s beauty—like the South’s—coexists with a history almost unbearably cruel. BRIGHTWOOD, like its predecessors, interweaves shamelessly lovely descriptions and images of nature with constant, aching awareness of the workings of original sin within the confines of family and history; but Smith’s ambition, like one of Yeats’ gyres, continues to widen. “Voices, Traces, the Whip-poor-will’s Plea,” one of the book’s many standout poems, recalls, on an ominously beautiful summer night, the story of a long-ago lynching: “The voice in the treeline votes to punish ... / Wisteria / vines tendril a green lash.” Smith’s gifts as a consummate storyteller, coupled with a lyricism that becomes richer and more resonant with each book, deserve any reading’s fullest house.

[Karen · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have read all of R.T. Smith's books, and Brightwood is my favorite.

[Jessica · Rating 3 out of 5]

Read one of his poems on the Writers' Almanac and loved it. Pretty good collection, but only a couple stand-outs.