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Almanac: Poems: Poems

Austin Smith

4.36 · Rating details · 33 ratings · 6 reviews

"Almanac" is a collection of lyrical and narrative poems that celebrate, and mourn the passing of, the world of the small family farm. But while the poems are all involved in some way with the rural Midwest, particularly with the people and land of the northwestern Illinois dairy farm where Austin Smith was born and raised, they are anything but merely regional. As the ...more

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ebook, 96 pages

Published September 22nd 2013 by Princeton University Press (first published January 1st 2013)

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Dec 14, 2014 C rated it it was amazing

Shelves: poetry, own

Until Almanac, I never had the pleasure of reading a book of poems written by a fellow MFA workshopper. Reading this book I had a few moments of recognition ("I've seen this one before!"), but mostly these pieces were new to me. Austin's condensed, lyric mode always punched me harder than his narrative one, but the book is a v. healthy mix of styles, topics, and forms. Trying to pick images to quote from my favorite pieces feels like trying to lift a line of knitted fabric from a sweater -- ...more

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Jan 02, 2015 Abby rated it it was amazing

Shelves: poetry, charlottesville

Beautiful, sad, haunting pastoral poems; an excellent collection.

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Mar 18, 2014 Maria rated it really liked it

interesting. Fort-Da was pretty special. Also, surprisingly, I enjoyed The Man Accused of Fucking Horses.

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May 19, 2018 Lois rated it it was amazing

As we all know, the best of poetry transcends the immediate to become universal in its scope, not only in terms of its imagery, but also in terms of its essential poetic spirit. Such universality can be found in Austin Smith’s debut collection of poems, entitled Almanac: Poems. Though grounded in the earthy, rugged landscape of the rural Midwest, in keeping with the poetic instincts of his own father, Smith reaches out to the communal human spirit that has so much to do with the mutual sharing As we all know, the best of poetry transcends the immediate to become universal in its scope, not only in terms of its imagery, but also in terms of its essential poetic spirit. Such universality can be found in Austin Smith’s debut collection of poems, entitled Almanac: Poems. Though grounded in the earthy, rugged landscape of the rural Midwest, in keeping with the poetic instincts of his own father, Smith reaches out to the communal human spirit that has so much to do with the mutual sharing of experiences that are united across both time and space.

Smith’s narrative poetry has a power and a cogency that not only leads the reader along the path of everyday life on a northwestern Illinois dairy farm, but which also empowers, while, at times, fringing on the nostalgic. The poignancy of personal revelation and recall shared with others comes across strongly, for instance, in “The Key in the Stone,” with Grandma Mary “staring out the window with such immense / longing at the snow falling into the lake.”

The virility of the farming landscape can be seen in such poems as “The Silo,” with the immediacy of childhood fears and traumas centering on “a great hook” from which slaughtered game was hung. The ghastliness, and yet, obversely, the sanctity, of it all is rivetingly conveyed in the final lines of the poem: “I found tracks / where deer had stepped gingerly / around this blighted ring like children / who knew not to walk on graves.” That Smith’s background was not pure farm boy is evocatively conveyed through his comparison of the ritualistic hanging of the lifeless and despoiled carcass to Mark Antony’s hoisting aloft of the “blood-stained wax effigy” of the once mighty Caesar, “so the crowd could see / his twenty-three wounds and believe him / dead.”

Smith’s close familiarity with the everyday tragedies of our human existence is recorded in diction that is readily accessible to the average reader, but which has a depth that is capable of resounding through the hearts and souls of his audience, facilitating their response, even if they come from an essentially nonpoetic background. When river waters flood through people’s homes, leaving devastation in their wake, he personifies such an elemental force, piling images of this intrusive behemoth one upon the other, so that one comes to feel that one’s own self is ravaged by the irresistible power and momentum of the catastrophe: “that it had thumbed through the diaries of their daughters, / that it had drunk all the liquor and replaced it with sand, / that it had put on the women’s clothes like a cross-dresser.”

For any reader who is sensitive to the nuances of the changing rural landscape, Smith’s Almanac: Poems should not only help you relive half-buried memories, but also help to rouse you to greater awareness of your present surroundings. Smith’s work is well worth investing in, so do consider acquiring yourself a copy—he is clearly a modern-day poet who deserves your attention.

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Feb 19, 2018 John Mihelic rated it really liked it

Smith's poems are flat. Flat like driving through rural Kansas or Missouri or Illinois. Evocative of the rural life, both a desire to escape and a sense of belonging - Like Springsteen before he fully embraced his synthesizer.

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Nov 09, 2015 Drunken_orangetree rated it really liked it

Some narrative, some lyric poems, mostly about life in small-town or rural Illinois. Beautiful moments, like the last poem about his grandfather. Occasional clunkers like "A Serious House on Serious Earth" where two college kids grow estranged from their hayseed, improvident parents, parents who accidentally sent their children off to Brown and Berkeley, from where they returned as changelings.

Sorry. My pen got loose.

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