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Simon Smith
Biography
Simon Smith's previous books are Fifteen Exits (Waterloo Press, 2001) and Reverdy Road (Salt Publications, 2003). His translations of Catullus and Pierre Reverdy have appeared in PN Review and Poetry Review. He was a judge of the Poetry Society's 2004 National Poetry Prize and is librarian of the Poetry Library in London. His third full-length collection, Mercury, is published by Salt in Spring 2006.
Recordings
- Rote/Thru
Part 10 from the poem/modular semi-improvised composition, Rote/Thru composed and written by Jack Hues, Simon Smith and David Herd. This performance is given by Jack Hues (guitar), Robert Stillman (tenor saxophone), Sam Bailey (piano) and Rutledge Turnlund (double bass).
North London, 2005
This recording was made on 6 July 2005, at a flat in north London.
- 'A Harsh Light'
- 'Acrobats'
- 'Aide Memoire'
- 'Bet Wits'
- 'Blot'
- 'Choice'
- 'Constellations'
- 'Day One'
- 'Echo Round'
- 'For the Moment'
- 'Four of Clubs'
- 'Funny That'
- 'Language'
- 'Mending Wall'
- 'Michelle'
- 'Monday Afternoon'
- 'Of'
- 'Orpheus'
- 'Permanent Marker'
- 'Permanent Wave'
- 'Pfuff'
- 'Polyester Cotton Mix'
- 'Puts You in the Picture'
- 'Radio'
- 'Reality'
- 'Shiny Beach'
- 'Simon'
- 'Slips Light'
- 'Surveillance'
- 'Tee Hee'
- 'The Chicken'
- 'The Day It All Came Clear'
- 'To Moment'
- 'Warm Rain'
- 'White'
- 'Who's Whose'
- 'Words for Fishy'
- Absence'
- Asking for It'
- Driven'
- Entry'
- Falling'
- Jack Spicer'
- Minutiae'
- One Last Song'
- smith-simon_38-Thin-Air_brunel_2005.mp3
- Symbol'
- The Answer'
- Twin Antennae'
Bibliography
- http://www.saltpublishing.com/books/smp/1844710270.htm
- http://www.saltpublishing.com/books/smp/1844712540.htm
- http://www.greatworks.org.uk/poems/HG/SS1.mp3
- http://www.poetrysociety.org.uk/review/pr92-3/../../files/smith.htm
- http://www.poetrysociety.org.uk/review/pr95-1/../../files/smith.htm
- http://jacketmagazine.com/21/denb-../../files/smith-padg.mp3
- http://www.soton.ac.uk/~bepc/poets/../../files/smith.htm
Sample Text
For the Moment
That's where we are
To the left and right
Silver sharp the throat
Get up and see the place
A room how it is about now
Endless cloudless sky
This afternoon heads off
To the horizon where signifiers
Float freely above signifieds
Or endless sunsets or whatever
The moment you like
Screw of paper white
Windows black windows
Reviews
Comment on Mercury:
"Simon Smith has a fresh, compelling voice, which simultaneously draws you in and holds you at bay. This collection of poems manages to be personal and yet objective, witty and yet emotional, pared-down and epigrammatic but at the same time sharp, colloquial and strange. An impressive achievement." -- Nicci Gerrard
"Simon Smith's poetry at first seems to hurtle, pushing from high-speed line-break to line-break through love, through outraged bewilderment (hurdle and hurt), through the craftily recycled throwaways of modern phrase. As poem overlaps with poem, there's the effect, though, of detail being traced over preceding detail, a musical refrain or a decorative pattern emerging through sequences that replay and transmute their own elements, slowing the tempo down as they create dwellings-on, lyric memory, improvising with the sonic shapes they have initiated. Mercury is Simon Smith at his best." -- Richard Price
Comment on Reverdy Road:
"Smith is master of the deceptively casual poem…. At its best … [his] use of the short form over so many pages achieves an effect comparable to a villanelle." -- Simon Coppock, Poetry Review
"The Jack Lemmon of English poetry." -- Geraldine Monk
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