The Flood & The Garden

Poetry. Working solidly in the tradition of Duncan, Williams, Creeley and Kerouac, Dale Smith offers a loosely assembled "daybook" which boldly mixes criticism, speculation, religious imagery, and the mundane. Smith, whose provocative views of contemporary poetry and poetics have already brought him a good amount of attention, moves seamlessly from brisk life-descriptions ("Coffee, cigarettes, herb. Sit on balcony, look out through clearing smog") to meditations on the two great Biblical sites of human transition: the garden (ignorance into knowledge) and the flood (vengence into promise). A substantial and pleasurable book by a fiery younger poet.

Dale Smith (born 1967) is an American poet, editor, and critic. Smith was born and raised in Texas and studied poetry at New College of California in San Francisco. He now lives in Austin, Texas with his wife, the poet Hoa Nguyen, and is working on a PhD at the University of Texas. While in San Francisco, Smith was co-editor of Mike & Dale's Younger Poets, which put him in contact with many important poets from previous generations as well as the young poets of his own generation. After moving to Austin in 1998, he and Hoa Nguyen started the small press publishing venture Skanky Possum. From November 2003 to October 2004, Smith wrote a lively column for Bookslut. Smith's poetry and essays have been widely published, including an appearance in The Best American Poetry 2002. Recently, he was chosen to write the introduction to Ed Dorn's Way More West (2007, Penguin).