Merril D. SmithCritiques
Auteur de Encyclopedia of Rape
Critiques
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Once some brilliant star breathed time
in the after-wake of explosion and danced across a universe
exploring eternity
The poems were compiled after Smith's mother died of COVID-19 in April 2020, and so a number of the poems feature her mother in her youth and old age. She (and others long-deceased) also features as a ghost; not a scary, haunted ghost, but:
Not living,
no longer here,
yet not completely gone.
In her poem "Family Ghosts," Smith makes clear her calling and intent:
Subsisting, existing
their ghost voices sing to me
I hear them
I feel them--ancestors calling me,
this is what we do, generate, create the songs of our hearts forever.
These are poems I will be turning to often as I seek comfort when my own family members become "not living, / no longer here." I will find comfort in knowing that they are "not completely gone." Smith demonstrates how a writer could (and, perhaps, should) allow ancestors to speak through her, echoing through the years, so we always remember not just when but if.