Sky Burials
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The poems in Ben Smith’s first chapbook map shifting environments, strange ecological events and dubious auguries. They trace rivers, coastlines and other borders, where saints set sail in boats of stone, wolves stalk the suburbs of Chernobyl and scientists leap from cliffs dressed in coats of feathers. Told through the voices of birds, unreliable seers and broken bones found in rivers and museums, these dark, playful poems explore prophecy and ritual, science and uncertainty in the era of climate change.
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The poems in Ben Smith’s first chapbook map shifting environments, strange ecological events and dubious auguries. They trace rivers, coastlines and other borders, where saints set sail in boats of stone, wolves stalk the suburbs of Chernobyl and scientists leap from cliffs dressed in coats of feathers. Told through the voices of birds, unreliable seers and broken bones found in rivers and museums, these dark, playful poems explore prophecy and ritual, science and uncertainty in the era of climate change.
Magpie Words
Was it in the speckle-shelled before
that the devil spliced a thread of his blood
with the first inkling of who we are?
Or was it during that first hungry yawn
that he slipped in, as insect or grub,
and grazed our throats with song?
I do not know, but I know that my love
for brightness comes from a darkness
in my gut, where consonants chatter
and knot together, and vowels gape
like empty nests.
I know that when I creep in to crack
a hoard of shining eggs,
I can already taste a bitter drop of blood,
like the beginnings of a word,
pooling in the curve of my tongue.
Published: 5 November 2014
ISBN: 978 1 905208 29 6
Pages: 32
“To say that these closely-woven poems are storm-warnings of environmental crises is true enough, or equally to say they ground their intelligent apprehensions in observation of bird species vivid and specific enough to satisfy an ornithologist. What you might not expect from these descriptions is that they are beautiful. That is the most unsettling thing of all.”
Philip Gross
“These poems are something special. They shift the ground from under you like the subtle movement of tectonic plates. This is the proper stuff: succinct, observant, taut with precision; poetry that magnifies and strangely changes the way we see the world.”
Miriam Darlington
“Ben Smith’s poems are deeply attuned to what remains in us of the wild. Intensely lyric, playful, sharp-eyed and inventive, they immerse themselves in the elements and come back feeling fresh, renewed, alive.”
Andy Brown
Ben Smith’s poetry, criticism and short fiction has been published in a wide range of magazines, anthologies and journals. He completed a PhD on Environmental Poetry at Exeter University and currently lives in Devon.
