Suburban Myths

by Sam Schmidt

In Suburban Myths, Sam Schmidt writes poetry that plumbs the depths of everyday life in that most artificial of environments, the American suburb. He explores not only the myth that is the suburb-an island in time and space trying to forestall nature and history while also being part of them, and the myths of romantic love and family life by which the suburbs call to something in our hearts-but also the sometimes-whimsical myths that we create to try to make the suburban world come round at those times when it suddenly seems foreign.

80 pages, Paperback

First published February 1, 2012

Reviews

[Margaret Adams · Rating 4 out of 5]

I saw Sam Schmidt read "How They Met", "Hee, Ho, Ha" and a few other poems in July of 2012, just a few months after this volume came out. I wasn't able to get ahold of my own copy until today, on the local writer's shelf of Baltimore bookstore. It clearly hasn't gotten a lot of press or circulation--I had to add it manually to Goodreads--but it's a great read. I read it through twice this afternoon, which I can almost never do with poetry books. I can't decide if it's an indictment of the suburbs, an abashed celebration of them, or both. I always engage more with work that I've seen read out loud by it's author, but there's some lines in here that have reverberated for me since I first heard them last summer.