Walking the Perimeters of the Plate Glass Window Factory
by Jared Smith (Birch Brook Press, PO Box 81, Delhi, NY 13753; www.birchbrookpress.com; $16).

Finding language for the inexpressible

by Marilynn Ann Breithart

What is life
when we cannot reach out and feel our skin against the cold
stone of night.
And find the warmth we do not find in ourselves?
What is it that fills these sagging shacks in southern Illinois or
Arkansas or Colorado,
rising up into the clear cold skies that stand above our
laboratories and naming games
that has nothing to do with haste or quick response, but echoes
with the soft flow of waters running inevitably to sea?
What is it makes us turn our deepest discoveries to laughter
caught on tape,
hank god I have forgotten the name; only this,
I have forgotten the name.

—”He Who Says the Name of God Will Perish”

It begins as a flash—a pause in the everyday. Something about life is communicated outside our usual comprehension of the things and events around us: in the shrug of an anonymous shoulder, the sealing of an envelope, or a glance at the setting sun, something unspoken compels. Something has changed, and we seek words to tell about it, shout about it, or whisper it in reverence. For this we turn to the poet. His task it is to find language for the inexpressible.

For the poet, life is one long journey into the nature of things. Walking the perimeters of life he observes the whole, not as a separate entity as both participant and observer.

A quick run through a novel will tell you what the book is about, but good poetry takes time. We are not only the readers but also the participants. Poetry does not just sit there and entertain. It can jolt or jog; it can conjure up our futures or resurrect our past. It has even been said that poetry can change our lives. But it is neither the poet nor the poem that changes us; it is the poet’s vision, translated so that we can inform and adjust the perspective of our very own lives. In this way a poet opens new windows into our world.

This is exactly what Jared Smith does for us in his newest book of poems, Walking The Perimeters of the Plate Glass Window Factory.

The title itself is an invitation into his world, which is very much our own. The plate glass alerts us: the poems will be about views and reflections. But Smith’s poems also remind us that while we are looking out windows; we will also be viewing our own reflection and perceiving the mechanics of its production.

This book is about the nature of life and death and the connections between, generation unto generation. In the tradition of Whitman and with the imperative of James Wright, Smith reminds us of the importance of remembering—as opposed to forgetting. His poems reflect through the changes of time and space both the separation and coming together not only of individuals but also nature. We can connect with animals and birds, yet we are intensely human. We dread changes in our lives, in our families, and in our society. If we think of our life as a journey with a strange, sometimes bewildering roadmap, then we need to connect the dots between the interchanges.

This is Smith’s fourth book. Though these are not “nature” poems, they have a lot to do with Nature—the nature of being a human being and the connections with nature in the totality of life.

Encouraging us to make our own connectionss, Smith reflects on the past while looking into the future. The first poem, “Remembering the Union Dead at My Door,” traces the poet’s American roots from the ground up: from Arlington cemetery to the Colorado mountains. Along the way he shares his family with us, pausing to reflect on their mundane actions. Their very ordinariness becomes a cause for their being and a source of some very poignant and touching poems.

But we must also reflect on those too distant, whom we never see but who touch us nonetheless.

“The Board Meets In November” is a simple yet stunning reflection on coats. Somebody unseen made them. With this new awareness we are able to connect with a person we seldom realize we are touched by. Once you read this poem you will never put on a garment without connecting with its maker somewhere, wondering if the tailor himself is wondering who is wearing it.

Smith has spent a lot of time in the Colorado mountains, and his poetry evokes his close observation of nature and the center of stillness found there. He takes this home with him and, in a series of animalistic imagery, implants it in the city, the office, even the parking lot.

In “Returning Home” Smith reminds us that it is only our dreams that contain the freedom to soar like a bird of prey; and in “Turtles” he tells us even these slow creatures have more freedom. “In The Parking Lot” equates our cars with the husks of mollusks.

Anyone who has spent time in the mountains with a dear friend only to part at the end of summer will appreciate “The Last Trip We Took Together.” In an unspoken rite of passage, the separation begins before the actual parting as we walk a little bit apart from each other to gather up individual memories, memories of that time of togetherness that will connect us in the future.

Smith uses a lot of water images. Water flows in rivers and lies still in ponds. Water reflects both the life-giving and destructive elements of nature, and it illumines us with the phosphorus fire of night. Too little or too much and we perish. He is a fisherman and realizes that while we take the fish out of water, we ourselves are also the fish out of water. It is only by making these connections that we will attain ecological balance. Water is the perfect reflector. Or, as he so aptly puts it:

These words and all they hold and all that they reflect
are the pebbles of all that we will ever be.

— “Pebbles in a Stream”

Maybe poetry isn’t something you think to take to the mountains, but why not? Trees branches grow thick with a green embrace; reaching out we trip over their roots; the campfire grows thick with the aroma of shadows; the cobalt sky singes us with a vivid stillness that makes a well in the center of our hearts. All that teaching is going on around us as we hike or climb or quietly rest at streamside only to get lost in its flowing. Nature speaks to us not in words but in images. That is the language of nature, and the poets among us try to translate that language for the rest of us. Jared Smith does this very well.

Tuck this small book in your backpack...it doesn’t weigh very much.

Editor’s note: Jared Smith is poetry editor for Trail & Timberline magazine. His book of poems, Walking the Perimeters of the Plate Glass Window Factory, is available from the publisher listed at the beginning of this article. People interested in submitting poems to T&T should e-mail them to beckwt@cmc.org. Poetry guidelines are available on-line at http://www.cmc.org/cmc/tnt/guidelines/poetryguidelines.htm.