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The Last White Ruby: The Vanishing Polar Circles
A poetry collection inspired by Ronnie Smith's experiences living and working in the polar regions as an aviator and commander for the U.S. Air Force. His mission was the resupplying of U.S. scientific research stations. Anything but routine, Smith brings the surreal landscapes and flying phenomena to the reader through his keen sensitivity to the human condition, ever ready to adapt to an environment fraught with danger, beauty, and the unusual. The ubiquitous foe of the elements, absence of infrastructure, and wilderness combine to confront the aviator and seaman with sometimes uncompromising force. The poet captures this and more in his portrayal of the places most of humanity will never see, nor be able to appreciate the pristine beauty abounding at the icecaps that we stand to lose to climate change.
122 pages, Paperback
First published August 1, 2015
About the author
Ronnie Smith
34 books11 followersRonnie Smith grew up in Chicago, Illinois and Baltimore, Maryland. He earned a bachelor’s degree at Loyola University Maryland, and later studied engineering at the University of Maryland. Colonel Smith, retired from the Air Force after 30 years of service, where he commanded or flew over 1,000 flights in Antarctica as well as serving in Air Force/U.N. missions on all the other continents. Challenged by extreme winds and temperatures that could drop to minus 75 degrees Fahrenheit during Antarctic summer, physical and mental endurance were paramount to combat the rigors of prolonged operational stress. He discovered in that world contemplation and divine majesty. His poetry and paintings rest upon the foundation of the underlying wonder of God in humanity and creation. He hopes to develop a spiritual retreat center to allow participants to reconnect to their own God-centered inner world, experienced in a sanctuary of the divine natural world.
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Displaying 1 - 1 of 1 review
October 12, 2015
Reviewed by Jack Magnus for Readers' Favorite
The Last White Ruby: The Vanishing Polar Circles is a collection of poetry written by Ronnie J. Smith. Smith is a professional aviator whose flights took him over both poles, and he was also the in-theater Commander of Operation Deep Freeze which enabled him to spend 2005-2008 in Antarctica. His poetry shows the deep inspiration he gathered from his flights over, and time spent, on the ground in the polar regions. Many of his works are free verse and rely upon the pairings of sound and sense to impart their own internal rhythms. In Iluliaq, the sound and sense pairings work with the repeated refrains to heighten the tension and reflect the subject of the waves lapping on the ice.
Smith’s work is rich in imagery that builds the mood at the same time that it creates endless vistas in the reader’s mind’s eye. He frequently uses alliteration and the repetition of vowel sounds to marry the form of his words to the sense of his subject. In The Only Road, the lines: “Star-eyed falcons stun/ Those frozen seas” illustrate his use of alliteration in a palindromic form that’s evocative, pleasing to the ear and dramatic. At times, Smith’s use of refrains creates a chant-like rhythm; a music that seems to stamp and roll and immerse itself into the reader’s consciousness.
I must confess that I have long been enraptured by the polar regions, and have spent untold hours enchanted by the tales of those explorers Smith memorializes in his poetry, and awed by the photographic images of those icy wastes and the harsh grandeur. And while I’ve never been more than an armchair adventurer in those polar climes, I felt, reading The Last White Ruby, as though I were in the presence of a kindred spirit, albeit one whose adventures are indeed first-hand.
Smith’s words capture the magic, mystery and majesty of his subject, and I frequently found myself reading the same lines aloud over and over, letting my tongue and mind taste the meeting of form and sense. His images are crystalline and flowing all at once, and his style is reminiscent of that of the Victorian poet, Alfred Lord Tennyson, and Edgar Allan Poe. I was drawn to Smith’s tributes to Amundsen, Shackleton and Hillary, and bemoaned anew the plight of Scott’s ponies in Sonnet to the South Pole Ponies.
The Last White Ruby is the real deal. It’s a collection of marvelous poetry that spoke so directly to me that I’m still seeing vast white canyons, summer dusks flowing into dawn and the ineffable sadness of what has been irretrievably lost. The Last White Ruby: The Vanishing Polar Circles is most highly recommended.
The Last White Ruby: The Vanishing Polar Circles is a collection of poetry written by Ronnie J. Smith. Smith is a professional aviator whose flights took him over both poles, and he was also the in-theater Commander of Operation Deep Freeze which enabled him to spend 2005-2008 in Antarctica. His poetry shows the deep inspiration he gathered from his flights over, and time spent, on the ground in the polar regions. Many of his works are free verse and rely upon the pairings of sound and sense to impart their own internal rhythms. In Iluliaq, the sound and sense pairings work with the repeated refrains to heighten the tension and reflect the subject of the waves lapping on the ice.
Smith’s work is rich in imagery that builds the mood at the same time that it creates endless vistas in the reader’s mind’s eye. He frequently uses alliteration and the repetition of vowel sounds to marry the form of his words to the sense of his subject. In The Only Road, the lines: “Star-eyed falcons stun/ Those frozen seas” illustrate his use of alliteration in a palindromic form that’s evocative, pleasing to the ear and dramatic. At times, Smith’s use of refrains creates a chant-like rhythm; a music that seems to stamp and roll and immerse itself into the reader’s consciousness.
I must confess that I have long been enraptured by the polar regions, and have spent untold hours enchanted by the tales of those explorers Smith memorializes in his poetry, and awed by the photographic images of those icy wastes and the harsh grandeur. And while I’ve never been more than an armchair adventurer in those polar climes, I felt, reading The Last White Ruby, as though I were in the presence of a kindred spirit, albeit one whose adventures are indeed first-hand.
Smith’s words capture the magic, mystery and majesty of his subject, and I frequently found myself reading the same lines aloud over and over, letting my tongue and mind taste the meeting of form and sense. His images are crystalline and flowing all at once, and his style is reminiscent of that of the Victorian poet, Alfred Lord Tennyson, and Edgar Allan Poe. I was drawn to Smith’s tributes to Amundsen, Shackleton and Hillary, and bemoaned anew the plight of Scott’s ponies in Sonnet to the South Pole Ponies.
The Last White Ruby is the real deal. It’s a collection of marvelous poetry that spoke so directly to me that I’m still seeing vast white canyons, summer dusks flowing into dawn and the ineffable sadness of what has been irretrievably lost. The Last White Ruby: The Vanishing Polar Circles is most highly recommended.
Displaying 1 - 1 of 1 review