Lytton Smith

Lytton Smith Poems

It was in the absence of light
as when near new moon and
no moonlight; as when a part
...

Lytton Smith Biography

Lytton Smith (born 1982) is an Anglo-American poet. His most recent poetry collection is The All-Purpose Magical Tent (Nightboat Books, 2009), which was selected by Terrance Hayes for the Nightboat Books Poetry Prize in 2009, and was praised by Publishers Weekly in a starred review as "...fantastic and earthy, strange and inherited, classical and idiosyncratic, at once." He also has a previous chapbook, Monster Theory, selected by Kevin Young for the Poetry Society of America Chapbook Fellowship in 2008. Additionally, Smith's poetry has appeared in a number of prominent literary journals and magazines such as The Atlantic, Bateau, Boston Review, Colorado Review, Denver Quarterly, Tin House, and many others. Lytton Smith was born in Galleywood, England. He moved to New York City, where he became a founder of Blind Tiger Poetry, an organization dedicated to promoting contemporary poetry. He has taught at Columbia University, Plymouth University in the southwest of England, and now teaches at the State University of New York at Geneseo.)

The Best Poem Of Lytton Smith

Radar Data #12

It was in the absence of light
as when near new moon and
no moonlight; as when a part

of a picture is in shadow (as
opposed to a light): as when
in the condition of being

hidden from view, obscure,
or unknown—in concealment,
or else without knowledge

as regards to some particular;
and of the weather, season,
air, sky, sea, etc., characterized

by tempest; in times, events,
circumstances etc. subject to
tempers; inflamed, indicative,

predictive, or symbolical of
strife (harbinger of coming
trouble)—a period of darkness

occurring between one day &
the next during which a place
receives no light from the sun,

and what if it is all behind us?
I no longer fear the rain will
never end, but doubt our ability

to return to what lies passed.
On the radar, a photopresent
scraggle of interference, as if

the data is trying to pretend
something's out there where
everything is lost.

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