SMOTE
© 2015 by James Kimbrell
FIRST EDITION
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced without written permission of the publisher.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Kimbrell, James, 1967–
[Poems. Selections]
Smote : poems / James Kimbrell.—First edition.
pages ; cm
eISBN 978-1-941411-13-1
I. Title.
PS3561.I41677A6 2015
811'.54—dc23
2014047731
Cover and interior by Kirkby Gann Tittle.
Manufactured in Canada.
This book is printed on acid-free paper.
Sarabande Books is a nonprofit literary organization.
| The Kentucky Arts Council, the state arts agency, supports Sarabande Books with state tax dollars and federal funding from the National Endowment for the Arts. |
for Jami
CONTENTS
5 Take Me As I Am
6 Ode: Feeling Up My Friend’s Sister at the Moment Their Drunken Father Begins the Dog Slaughter
7 The Starting Point
2.
1 Apology after Driving Down Hooker Street Thirty Years after We Moved
2 It Was Like a Movie
3 Smote
4 Apocalyptic Lullaby
5 The Full Ratio
6 Roots
7 My Father’s Friends Travel from the Afterlife to Attend His Memorial
8 Elegy for My Mother’s Ex-Boyfriend
9 Kingfish
3.
1 Love Letter to You, Dear Reader
2 Elegy for the Epic
3 O Anna Lynn, You Must Have Known
4 Afterlife
5 Chicken Brick’n
6 There’s Nothing Wrong with You
7 The Guitar Boat
8 Not Soul
9 Heuristic for the Nearsighted
The Author
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I would like to thank the editors and staff of the following publications in which several of the poems in this collection first appeared.
The Cincinnati Review: “How to Tie a Knot,” “Pluto’s Gate: Mississippi,”
“There’s Nothing Wrong with You”
Connotation Press: “Take Me As I Am”
Narrative: “Ode: Feeling Up My Friend’s Sister at the Moment Their
Drunken Father Begins the Dog Slaughter”
The New Guard: “Love Letter to You, Dear Reader”
New South: “O Anna Lynn, You Must Have Known,” “It Was Like a
Movie,” “The Guitar Boat”
The Normal School: “So Many Stories”
Ploughshares: “Chicken Brick’n,” “Free Checking!” “Smote”
Southern Poetry Review: “The Full Ratio,” “Not Soul”
“How to Tie a Knot” also appeared in Best American Poetry 2012, edited by Mark Doty.
“How to Tie a Knot” and “Smote” also appeared on Poetry Daily.
My sincere gratitude to Florida State University for their support during the period in which these poems were written. Also, my thanks to John and Renée Grisham and the University of Mississippi for a fellowship that afforded me a nine-month residency in which much of this work was begun. Lastly, my eternal gratitude for the continued encouragement and editorial acumen of Adam Boles,
