Small-Scale Observations

The poems in James Sutherland-Smith's eighth collection move from the garden into the neighbourhood of "a down-at-heel Hapsburg town" and then range into the nearby forest, the personal and the past. Borders are crossed and seemingly insignificant creatures suddenly gain visionary dimensions. The title poem recalls a poet whose attention to the small-scale made his work seem minor, yet as Hardy wrote "he noticed such things," a heedfulness absent in a contemporary world where both simplistic analysis and solutions constantly fail to address threats to our very existence.

The namesake of a war criminal

has been chopping wood for three days

hefting an orange-handled axe.

Behind him three hunting dogs bark

at the nonchalant passage of a cat.

James Sutherland-Smith was born in Scotland in 1948, but has lived in Slovakia since 1989. He has published seven previous collections of his own poetry, and has translated a number of Slovak and Serbian poets. His poetry translations have been awarded the Slovak Hviezdoslav Prize and the Serbian Zlatko Krasni Prize.His most recent translation was the work of Mária Ferencuhová, also published by Shearsman Books, and he is currently completing a selection of poetry, translated from the work of the Slovak poet, Ivan Strpka.