© 2011 Bridge Foundation Inc

An inevitable outcome of all this travel is a fixa­tion with arrivals and departures, often expressed through mythic voices. So the lone figure of Theseus' father waits for his son at the wharf while in Special Toast, the persona of Vulcan returns to the forge: ‘I had been away and now I was back. Did I mention that?’

The beginnings and ends of travels are equal to the beginnings and ends of jail terms, both teach­ing the traveller about the world and his place in it:‘....................those gypsies, nursing the secrets of centuries,

‘faced the roads ahead, & their shadows’  Gipsies

The metaphor of the gypsy is so powerful that those who cannot make the journey must watch:  ‘an actor playing a gipsy with a lamp lit young beauty’ Crucial Scene.

Like Orpheus in the Underworld, the persona may not turn back and watch all that happens, but he must know that Life continues. There are some irritating qualities in this poetry - the over-reliance on ending poems with one liners, unexpected rhymes, a tendency to the maudlin, the use of ampersand. But the final poem redeems all of this - an extended metaphor on Depression as the Black Dog, is humorous and uplifting with a perfect one-liner to finish the book, an answer to the quest.

An aspect of this text which cannot go unmentioned is the illustrations by Chanin Thantawiwattana, with a series of twenty five pen and ink drawings, plus a cover for the poet who pronounces his dislike of photographs. These drawings are reminiscent of the artwork of Aubrey Beardsley, with their fine line delicacy and erotic fantasy. They both supplement and comment on Smith's poems, for example in the bitter recount of a meeting between a man and his ex-wife in The Visitation; Smith is unrelent­ingly mean, but Thantawiwattana draws a portrait grown out of rock, proudly enduring pain and grief. Accompanying Bothole in Colour the artist provides a portrait of Fletcher Christian with a half-buried head melding into rocky sands, aptly adding to Smith's description. The graphic supporting Vulcan is a commentary on the speaker's ambiguous state­ments, an unusual metaphor offering layers of meaning. At other times the drawings provide their own story running as a caption for the main poetic story.

This text is multi-faceted, different parts of it will appeal to different audiences, which hopefully will not affect its sale ability. There are certainly many poems here worthy of reflection.

Reprinted from five bells, Spring 2005  pp 55-56