Mastodon D. James Smith, Author at My Site

D. James Smith

A recipient of an NEA fellowship in poetry and an Edgar in fiction, D. James Smith’s work has appeared widely in magazines such as Blackbird, The Malahat Review, Notre Dame Review, Poetry International, and Stand. His books include two collections of poems, Sounds The Living Make (S. F. Austin State Univ.) The Dead Ventriloquist, with an introduction by Dorianne Laux (Ahsahta) and the novel, My Brother’s Passion (Permanent Press) as well as four novels in YA lit. (Atheneum.)

RAIN

D. James Smith

RAIN Still vast, lung-wet, I lie there, awhile, Trickling out of the tiny cracks in my wrists. I waken slowly, cold as the sea and remember. Days I drove home weeping for nothing I could name but the bruised aft...

SLEET

D. James Smith

Sleet, the first he’d seen in California, and not much of it at that. At five thousand feet in February, it made sense, though. Nosing along in his pickup, he’d traced the lake created by Pacific Gas and Electric, part...

It’s Like This

D. James Smith

It's Like This Coming when I call my daughters two fortune tellers wet heads wrapped in towels sit down with their tumble of questions nearly fitting the puzzle I’ve made of myself yes they’re ready offering thei...

Holiday

D. James Smith

My Rose of Sharon has gone dormant, Thin and spindly as The many masts of sailing ships Gone to port in winter That I’ve seen in paintings, So I’ll be a long time waiting In the black flowers of my days For summ...

The Calf

D. James Smith

Child of a dying wind it lay In the muck and hot, blond grass Below the dam and its strangled creek That my boyhood friend and I Crossed that morning, determined To flee the nun’s black habits and ink, To claim ...