Trespasser

by Smith, R. T.

• ISBN13: 9780807120521
• ISBN10: 0807120529
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 1996-06-01
• Publisher: Louisiana State Univ Pr

Summary

With craggy Celtic metaphysics and perfect linguistic pitch, R. T. Smith evokes the landscape, culture, and history of Ireland and the New World through the eyes and ears of an outsider. Words matter to Smith, and the language of these poems is knotty and precise, blazing into moments of recognition with the elliptical testimony and spare light of every day objects. The collection arcs with rigorous unity of vision from the secular to the heights of spiritual rapture, until the demarcation between world and spirit finally begins to blur. Surely, this book suggests, between world and spirit there is, for those who can see, no demarcation at all. Trespasser is a dazzling, passionate collection, certain to delight and move any reader who has an ear for the music of language played by a virtuoso.

Table of Contents

Uisce Beatha
Stolen Measures	3	(2)
Jumble Sale	5	(2)
Waterford	7	(2)
Mushrooms	9	(2)
Lucia	11	(3)
The Magdalene	14	(3)
Tourist	17	(3)
Saint Patrick's	20	(2)
Breves from The Book of Kells	22	(1)
Before the Breakup	23	(2)
Leabai	25	(1)
Passage to Kilronin	26	(1)
Wrenboys	27	(1)
End of Summer, City of the Tribes	28	(2)
Siuil a Run	30	(2)
Poteen	32	(2)
Meithiel	34	(2)
Black Shawl	36	(1)
Perfect	37	(2)
Angels	39	(1)
Conviction	40	(1)
The Uses of Enchantment	41	(1)
Teresa	42	(1)
Halcion	43	(2)
Last Things	45	(1)
Sect	46	(5)
Gristle
The Convert	51	(2)
Gristle and Heron	53	(1)
Saint Gristle Nocturne	54	(1)
Gristlewolf	55	(2)
Gristle Trout	57	(2)
Gristle Teasel, Gristle Bear	59	(1)
Gristle Stoat	60	(1)
Orchard	61	(1)
Gristle and Sheela-na-Gig	62	(2)
The Hard Word	64	(1)
Gristle Epitaph	65