Little Black Train

Poetry. Old loves--especially music and art--once again kindle a poetry of beguiling eloquence and erudition for Jordan Smith and highlights of this collection include two memorable suites of poems: Eight Hats, based on paintings by Walter Hatke, and Sketches for a Novel, drawing on paintings in the National Gallery of Ireland. The pull of the past is strong for Smith and these poems are replete with references to touchstones of other eras--straw boaters, Wobblies, R. D. Laing, old time hymns, Monopoly games...but nostalgia is leavened by a new political urgency, the ecstasies and explicatives of today.