Synopses & Reviews
Review
"Dave Smith is not only the most talented poet of his generation but also the most prolific. Homage to Edgar Allan Poe was the second of two substantial volumes of his poetry (Dream Flights was the first) to appear in 1981, only two years after the publication of Goshawk, Antelope. Ask Smith how he can write so much, and he will say frankly that he's not afraid of failing. This healthy attitude will surely impress anyone who reads Homage, especially if he comes to it after reading Dream Flights. But only ingratitude could make anyone dismiss Homage as a failure, for it contains many genuinely affecting lyrics that seem slight only because Smith's capabilities are so huge. What's more, Homage makes explicit what Smith's followers have always known: Smith is a formalist at heart. (Some of these new poems rhyme. ) But it really is a shame that the title poem, a suite of six poems, fails to cohere, for it does contribute importantly to the reader's sense of Smith's Southernness. The problem is that the only thing Smith seems to share with Poe (who is rather incidental to the poem anyhow) is his status as a Virginian." Reviewed by Daniel Weiss, Virginia Quarterly Review (Copyright 2006 Virginia Quarterly Review)