Jedediah Smith writes across many genres with numerous books of poetry (The Gunslinger in Technicolor), short stories (Esau’s Fables), social satire (Pepkin’s Travels), and factions (Bulletin to the Head) to his credit as well as a graphic novel (The Last Messiah on Earth) and translations of other authors (Vladimir Mayakovsky and Hermann Hesse).
He is also a writer of horror novels whose work delves into the mythic and religious roots of fear. Drawing inspiration from the cosmic dread of H.P. Lovecraft, the unsettling domestic darkness of Ira Levin, the philosophical unease of Thomas Ligotti, and the visceral imagination of Clive Barker, Smith creates fiction that is both unnerving and thought-provoking. He probes ancient myths and modern anxieties alike, revealing how belief can both console and corrupt, illuminate and terrify. Within his stories, ancient gods whisper through half-forgotten rituals, faith curdles into obsession, and belief becomes a door left ajar for the unknown to enter.
Beyond fiction, Smith has a deep fascination with myth, folklore, and theology, which in turn inform the atmosphere and themes of his stories. When he isn’t writing, he can often be found studying obscure alchemical texts, exploring Eleusinian rituals, or searching for traces of the sacred hidden in everyday life. His research in the field of supernatural terror has led him to write articles on a wide variety of topics, from horror movies to murder ballads to a Rondo-nominated history of Aurora monster models.
In his poetry, Smith embraces the widest definition of that genre as it has been expanded over the past century with Dada, Pataphysics, Surrealism, OuLiPo, concrete poetry, sound poetry, L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E, asemic writing, Conceptual writing, and the use of chance operations as practiced by William Burroughs, John Cage, Jackson Mac Low, and J.G. Ballard. While he has always committed some of his energy to working in traditional closed forms, most of his work focuses on appropriating existing texts and reconceptualizing them through a variety of disruptive linguistic strategies. The goal has been to leave behind the myth of a central organizing ego that controls language and to instead welcome the chaotic babel of voices past and present, near and far, rational and nonrational.
Concerning the blindness and bigotry of people, the pleasures of hatred rise superior even to the instinct of self-preservation.
–Isaac AsimovO lost, and by the wind grieved, ghost, come back again.
–Thomas WolfeI see a good many enemies around me and mighty few friends.
–Wild Bill Longley looking at the audience for his hanging
Jedediah Smith 