In the Night Orchard: New and Selected Poems

By R.T. Smith

In the Night Orchard is a retrospective collection of poems gleaned from over three decades of writing by a poet absorbed by nature and culture in the American South. These often-narrative poems are concerned with history, race, indigenous music, the many Southern dialects and customs and the quest for authentic identity. Skull, Grim, and Grinning I forgot how barbed wire snarls-- like a low bird's nest--caught the cold raccoon last winter. He found his own death there, and each snagged stage of ice, sun and hungry birds had a say as weeds blew and I found human obligations to occupy me. But after thaw I went walking, saw a twisted root (spring's first threat of snake), red eye- shape of new sumac leaves, deer tracks by the hundred, and on the rotted fence post polished to blinding shine by sun, the forgotten relic hung, a barbed cocoon coiled around a fanged white flower of bone.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1937875652
• ISBN13: 9781937875657
• Release Date: June 2014
• Publisher: Trp: The University Press of Shsu
• Length: 200 Pages
• Weight: 0.60 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 5.5" x 8.8"