Description
In Poems from the Winter House, Daniel Smith explores the emotional road travelled when aging and circumstance cause one to leave the familiar for the unknown. With the acknowledgment that change is life’s only constant, Smith traces the passage from one stage of life to the next, sometimes with harshness, sometimes with humor, but always with striking resonance.
Smith’s poetry grows from a rural heritage where words come “low across the prairie/like rocks/rolled over virgin ground.” Quietly reflective, filled with love for a spouse, a farm, and a way of life, Poems from The Winter House celebrates the poet’s acceptance of a new landscape, both internally and externally.
Sylvia Cavanaugh –
I fell in love upon reading the first poem from Poems from the Winter House, by Daniel Smith. This is an achingly beautiful collection of love poems—love which is conveyed through close observation, through memory vibrant in detail. Smith is a master of poignant metaphor, like that of smoke and fire and a mother’s inscrutable heart (Memory of My Mother, Burning Trash.) Sometimes, Smith’s precise descriptions soar with music, as in “Satisfied all is well, sighing, sliding, softly toward sleep,” (Segmented Sleep.) There are cheese and bologna sandwiches for a fire crew, broken windows gapped wide open, hair crossed by the wind, oak leaves lifting. This collection of poems is a masterfully crafted tribute to love and to life, wedded to a fully realized place. Part of the emotional impact of these poems is the sense of what is being lost, yet Smith helps us come to terms with this inevitable aspect of love, of the human experience. I was deeply moved and highly recommend reading this collection of poems.