Title: Hard Landing
B
y: Rick Smith
Genre: Poetry, Trade Paper - 6X9 Digest size
Publisher: Lummox Press (PO Box 5301 San Pedro, CA 90733-5301) www.lummoxpress.com
Pages: 106
ISBN: 978-1-929878-
89-5

Publishing Date: August 2010

Retail: $15 + shipping

Order online via Pay Pal or by check made out to Lummox Press, sent to Lummox c/o PO Box 5301 San Pedro, CA 90733 USA

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WRENOIR ON CD!!!!  Rick Smith Reads from Hard Landing (34 tracks)!!

ORDER YOUR COPY TODAY...

$15 - Wren CD

“Rick Smith's spare yet dense poetry is reminiscent of Basho, the Japanese haiku master,
and displays much of the same restraint and discipline.”  Mark Terrill

 “Smith is a poet secure in his ability to write accessible poems that speak serious truths to the heart.”  Laura Stamps 

 “The wren lends itself to ethical and etymological inquiry, the poet says. This new collection, including lyrics
from The Wren Notebook, embodies an expansive, precise, obdurate rhythm, a generous wisdom and tender vision.
This is the mature Rick Smith, delving deeper into what is smaller.”  Vicki Lindner (from the introduction)

LISTEN TO A SAMPLE

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ABOUT RICK SMITH:

Rick Smith was raised in Manhattan, Paris, Toledo, Ohio and Bucks County, Pennsylvania. Rick Smith began writing under the guidance of Michael Casey at Solebury School in Pennsylvania. Close family friendships and Carl Sandburg and Lenore Marshall also made a lasting impact on Rick’s life choices. He went on to study with Anthony Hecht at Bard College, George Starbuck and Frank Polite at the University of Iowa and Sam Eisenstein at Los Angeles City College. He learned blues harmonica in the “basket houses” of Greenwich Village and in the roadhouses of Duchess County. During the 70’s, he joined Dan Ilves to co-edit the literary journal, Stonecloud. He is a clinical psychologist, in Rancho Cucamonga, CA where he specializes in brain damage and domestic violence. He and his wife, Erika, have a 14 year old son, Saunder. Rick Smith is published widely in anthologies and in small press publications such as New Letters, Onthebus, Blueline, Hanging Loose, Pinyon, Eclipse, Paper Street, Lummox, Rattle, Rhino and Main Street Rag…

EXCERPTS

 

Wren shudders
as usual
upon awakening.

That part about

heaven and earth..

 

Sky is something

she can't touch

but it's home.

 

And the dangers of a land

she can dig her beak into

give her fits.

 Now, 70 feet above the L.A. River
her place in the sky
is transparent.

 No tracks,
no sign.
Only hearsay evidence
she touched this air.

The invisibility

is near perfect.

 

A picture window

she climbs through.

 

 

 

 

We are not viola da gamba,

kettle drum, trumpet.

We are piccolo fife,

nose flute, pan pipe

We accompany thunder.

We are troglodytidae:

 

cave, hole, bra-on-the-line,

sock dwellers,

primitive and deep

in the pocket. We could

never

sleep until noon. Not with so

many wings moving.


But what does the wind seek

when it flirts with shallow water

or makes magnolia leaves

slap like polite applause

when beauty crashes to earth.


The slope & line of our

horizon is

perfect pitch and

the explosions are always

in the distance except for

the last one

 (for John Forsha)

 

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