Be Recorder

Carmen Gimenez Smith

Contemporary poetry can be very hit or miss for me. If the writers voice connects with me, it can resonate in ways literature doesn’t (see Danez Smith, Morgan Parker, Ilya Kaminsky) but if it doesn’t connect in the first few poems, generally I’m lost.

Smith is clearly a talented writer and others may love this complex little work, but it never caught fire for me. I’m not quite sure why. Perhaps I wasn’t reading close enough, perhaps the subtlety of the structure was lost on me. Smith is widely considered an important voice in poetry, so I must be missing something, perhaps you’ll find it?

Recommended for the enthusiast.