Abraham Smith discusses new book ‘Dear Weirdo’, music and tenure as Ogden’s poet laureate
-
- Abraham Smith just released his seventh book, “Dear Weirdo,” a book-length poem. Smith just completed a term as Ogden’s poet laureate and is a professor of English at Weber State University.
-
- “Dear Weirdo” is a new book-length poem by author, WSU professor and Ogden Poet Laureate Abraham Smith.
Photo supplied
Abraham Smith just released his seventh book, "Dear Weirdo," a book-length poem. Smith just completed a term as Ogden's poet laureate and is a professor of English at Weber State University.
Abraham Smith, assistant professor of English at Weber State University and Ogden’s Poet Laureate the past two years, released his seventh full-length book, “Dear Weirdo,” earlier this month.
The new publication by Propeller Books is a book-length poem, the first “blurs and blue bonnets and burrs and clarities” of which began in 2019. Unlike his other books of poetry that were broken into smaller, easy-to-digest bits, “Dear Weirdo” remained “one long song,” Smith says. “I delighted in stretching the rubber band Laffy Taffy a little farther.”
A wordsmith almost his entire life, Smith describes life as a child poet who was “a little in love with everything and everyone” — and first published in 1984 by a classmate in the cafeteria of a school in Sheldon, Wisconsin, “where the kids busted the chicken bones to sip at the marrow.” A kid swiped his Michael Jackson notebook and read aloud that “Abe loved Amy, or was it Michelle whose ears were tulips?”
Smith says, “Much cough-guffawing ensued. But I was already deeply acquainted with shame. So while I did feel dead I also felt deeply alive. Those were my words, spouted from atop a creaky table: neon marrow.”
As a professor, Smith aims to teach his students that “through creating, we learn to love ourselves more.” “Poetry is permission,” he said.
Image supplied
"Dear Weirdo" is a new book-length poem by author, WSU professor and Ogden Poet Laureate Abraham Smith.
The title of his new book-length poem carries the same message. Smith explains: “There’s something singular, indelible, irregular, a little off or on about all of us. And all of us stand sometimes on unlevel ground; it’s our sweet, strange heart that helps to level the stirring land where we stand. Blessed be the weirdos.”
Smith happily spent time during his tenure as poet laureate “hauling some bushels and heehaws of poetry joy to the kiddos” in our local schools. “I was fortunate to share a few of those chirps with Laura Stott and Sunni Wilkinson — two tremendous lyric poets and lighting-inspiring profs I am lucky to call colleagues and pals,” he said.
At the opening of the new Dumke Arts Plaza, he recited an original poem he wrote for the occasion, of which he says, “Poetry is often about catching light and I delighted in the chance to fan out some mirrors and windows toward our bright town.”
The last two verses read:
“Yes like Ogden poetry is a wide good road for us all: yes like poetry Ogden is a place to dream a rhythm dream to the tune of Joe McQueen: like Ogden poetry is a place to percolate your heart: like poetry Ogden is a place to puzzle things out make changes turn turn: faith and feeling and justice and healing and Spanish and English and Spanglish: yes like Ogden poetry is a place to honor the tusks and talismans of history: yes like poetry Ogden is a place to unfurl future’s tendrils up into these 223 days of sunshine per yearly gallop around: and I don’t know if it’s true that good people write good poems: but I do know good people make Ogden gooder each and every day: with apologies to the Weber State English Department for my grammar funhouse mirrors
“Friends, take a look around at this Dumke glory and the Monarch just up the hill: these are surely architectural poetries with visual poetries just inside: and here’s something true I know: poetry illuminates the map inside you that’s already written: no GPS necessary: you can get there eyes closed or open: and poetry is a luminous stitch: a healing light: and the Dumke lights tonight shine like 223 days in one: and lucky are we to call Ogden home: and lucky are we to be the mirrors and the windows for its good works and good lights”
Smith’s laureate term ended in January and Ogden City has been accepting applications for a new poet laureate for 2022-24. The deadline is on Friday.
Smith is currently on a book tour in the Southeast, Northeast and Midwest “finding the first songs of springtime everywhere I go.” Along with teaching at WSU and writing, he performs improvised poetry in the Ogden-based punk-country-bluegrass-folk band The Snarlin’ Yarns, which just completed their soon-to-be-released second album. Their first full-length album, “Break Your Heart” (2019), is available now online and at Lavender Vinyl in Ogden.
March 4, Smith says, will be a “splendid day to nab some vinyl” or a digital download from their Bandcamp page; “first Friday means all the dough goes to the band and you’ll be celebrating us from afar: we play a gig in the courtyard at Third Man Records in Nashville on that very eve.”
Read more about Abraham Smith and “Dear Weirdo” at propellerbooks.com.