Jedediah Smith’s poetry explores the terrain between history and myth, the desert landscapes where folklore and fact about the American West swirl together as oil paints on an artist’s palette. With a sense of space and light informed by the films of John Ford and Howard Hawks, Jedediah documents the western landscape of red rock and chaparral as well as the interior shots of arcades, poolhalls, Greyhound bus stations, and late-night barrooms. Exhibiting a surrealist sense of linguistic play, the language veers from Chandler’s hard-boiled vernacular to Kerouac’s heartfelt romanticism. As the reel of these poems unspools on the silver screen of the mind, it illuminates a place where the beautiful can be tragic and the tragic beautiful.

• Paperback: 56 pages
• Publisher: Independently published (December 16, 2019)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1676037985
• ISBN-13: 978-1676037989
• Product Dimensions: 5.2 x 0.1 x 8 inches
• Buy new: $10