Spill

Smith (Devotions) dismantles the boundaries among the lyric, travelogue, and philosophy in this hybridized collection. Comprising an extended sequence, the work considers lingering questions of cultural memory, trauma, and violence from a diverse set of vantage points. As Smith shifts gracefully among locales, genres, and temporal moments, the text performs and enacts its apt title, questioning the extent to which any individual voice exists apart from a shared cultural imagination. He asks whether a person can be purified “without being banished or erased.” The voice is revealed as a social construct, and the speakers of these poems often contain multitudes. For Smith, this collective consciousness is as rich with dialogue as it is laden with trauma. He elaborates, “Because I lack imagination// somebody, a Christ, a boy in custody, dies/ each evening.” The speaker gestures at his complicity with the larger mechanisms of culture, but also realizes his inability to change his own subject position. Though the philosophical ideas in these poems are wholly intriguing, their weaknesses go hand in hand with their strengths. The book’s “suffering and sorrow” may prove overwhelming to some readers, with the tangible details of history occasionally swirling into a cacophonous din. Nonetheless, Smith’s accomplished volume considers history, violence, and subjectivity with compassion and remarkable insight. (Aug.)