SUMMER 07: J.D. Smith
Added: April 2007 to Babel (archive)
Two Poems by J.D. Smith
J.D. Smith was awarded a 2007 Fellowship in Poetry from the United States National Endowment for the Arts. He has published two collections of poetry: The Hypothetical Landscape and Settling for Beauty. His children's book The Best Mariachi in the World will be published in 2008. Smith's poems have received three Pushcart nominations, and his essays and reviews have appeared in American Book Review, Grist and Pleiades. Additional information is available on his website .
An Ambition
To be a drop
joining the base
of a great white-crested wave
that bears a ship of provisions
to the starving
or topples a tyrant's spires
instead of breaking
in a tangle of flat foam and seaweed,
the usual case.
Bereaved
The first Christmas after-
an orange bristling with cloves,
the mandrill faces
in walnut halves left untouched-
the background, snowbanks
blank as absence.
© 2007 J.D. Smith