Clint Smith thrives in little miracles
When Clint Smith loves, he loves hard. “Above Ground,” his latest poetry collection, is a geyser of love: for his wife, for his children and for his growing family. While he recognizes a world that often looks hazardous to all those things, he still grows in love and still finds new ways to share that with those around him.
“Above Ground” begins with a poem about the heaviness of our world, but it chooses to soar higher into a glowing compassion that can only be brought out by his unique voice. But don’t believe that Mr. Smith is only flying high. He shrinks and grows within every poem, navigating tiny and large moments on the same page, often in the same few lines.
In “All at Once,” the first poem in the book, he writes, “A flood submerges a neigh- / borhood that sat quiet on the coast for three centuries. A child / takes their first steps and tumbles into a father’s arms.” Mr. Smith isn’t afraid to juxtapose the grandiose and often unthinkable with the small and overlooked moments of life. He’d prefer they stay together, and that creates compelling poetry.
This constant zooming in and out is the cornerstone of Mr. Smith’s language; he’s interested in how large small moments truly are, and how small acts create large waves. When he talks about reading Dr. Seuss books to his unborn child, he refers to “the half-globe of your yet-born body.” And later, when mourning over the news of another school shooting, he reminisces about those children’s mornings, filled with “half-eaten Pop-Tarts and eggs / in a coat of ketchup.” Mr. Smith asks readers what small moments are only small? What grand moments don’t impact us as individuals?
Mr. Smith accomplishes all this with purposefully simple language. It doesn’t attempt to obfuscate or create ambiguity, but instead allows its groundedness to elevate the poem’s meaning in a similar vein to Nikki Giovanni’s “Love Poems”.
In the poem “Gold Stars,” Mr. Smith questions the praise he receives for being an engaged father, and whether that praise is disingenuous, as his wife performs similar acts without any accolades. He writes, “I am adorned / in a garland of gold stars for simply being in the body.” Each word chosen is a straight shooter, which makes the images in each poem flow so easily that it’s hard to quote two lines without wanting to quote the whole poem. The beauty of fatherhood, matrimony and family life thrives in this simplicity, and it’s here that Mr. Smith examines the evolution of each phase in his life.
Throughout “Above Ground,” Mr. Smith provides a bird’s-eye view of the ever-changing realities of fatherhood and family through the lens of contemporary American life — and the stresses it’s always ready to provide. But it’s through these stressors that he finds even more miracles — in the creation of life, its nurturing, and in all the dance parties you have along the way.
Where many find discouragement, Mr. Smith breathes ecstasy. Prepare to be amazed at all the love in “Above Ground.”
ABOVE GROUND
By Clint Smith Little, Brown & Co ($27)