All of a Sudden Nothing Happened, Poems by Janet Smith
The poems of Janet Smith's All of a Sudden Nothing Happened concern themselves with placid surfaces, and the turmoil underneath. Her focus is inward, dark and resonant, a mind and heart engaging the external world.
“All of a Sudden Nothing Happened is a lyrical, unflinching study of identity and relationship to the natural world. In 'Jar of Lilies,' Smith perfectly captures the transformation and splintered unity that course through the collection: ‘Sick of the I, that stick / that drags the suitcase of the self, /I wanted to unravel / into lilies….’ Janet Smith explores the divide between subject and object, peeling back the layers of each surface to reveal the connection at the core.”—June Saraceno
“Janet Smith’s poems reveal a fractured emotional logic that is at once beautiful and strange, a ‘wordless reason’ that examines the often heart-breaking gap between possibility and reality. With a devotion to noticing both the particulars of the natural world, as well as the mysteries of the mind, Smith’s vision plumbs the very nature of human existence, suggesting that the ‘true work’ is to ‘watch the stars prop up the dark,/go cold and wordless, warm yourself/with the hide of the world.’”—Suzanne Roberts
Janet Smith began college at thirty-five after a string of jobs in Yosemite National Park. She graduated with an MFA in creative nonfiction from the University of Minnesota in 2001. She is on faculty in the English Department at Lake Tahoe Community College, California.
ISBN: 978-1936370009, 88 pages, $18.00