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Recent Media

Sam Schmidt, Poetry Reading

Sam Schmidt reading at CityLit in the Poe Room of the Pratt Library in Baltimore. April 14, 2012. Intro by Smartish Pace Editor Stephen Reichert.

Recent Interview

Interview with Gaylord Brewer

Loss has a constant presence in your new book, Give Over, Graymalkin. For you, where does the act of writing poetry fit into the process of losing, accepting, rebuilding, and regaining?That’s a significant question and a slippery one. The poems about my dog Jasper were ones in particular that I swore to myself I wouldn’t write—too private—and then ultimately wrote anyway. His death—slow and then sudden—was hard on us. I finally realized it would be those poems or nothing for a long while, and so I suppose in some ironic way the intimate nature of the subject that I was so wary of was also what finally compelled me to tackle it. I hoped through the personal to strike a resonant chord about loss. From responses I’ve received, maybe I got lucky, although it was damned costly luck. I’ve been writing poems for a long time, and that process obviously has important correlations to how I approach my life and what I am and believe. It’s not therapy, though, and it’s not a journal. The poems are intended for an audience to read and perhaps be moved or amused or appalled by. To recover from loss takes time, ... [ read more ]

Upcoming Events

Issue 20 Readings!

9/1/2013 (7:00pm) -- (8:00pm)

Baltimore, New York, Raleigh, Austin, Virgin Islands

We will have Smartish Pace Issue 20 readings in Baltimore (TBA), New York City (KGB Bar), Raleigh (Contemporary Art Museum), Austin (TBA) and Virgin Islands (TBA).

Dates to be announced here throughout the year.

Recent Review

Buried in the Mind's Backyard (Schwartz review)

It seems to me one useful polarity by which to sort poets might run from "realistic" to "idealistic." In other words, some poets spend most of their time describing clearly and relatively completely what's in front of them while others want to ascend to the empyrean as quickly as possible. There are advantages and dangers for both. The realist speaks swiftly and directly, but gets drowned in the objects he conjures up. The poem never ... [ read more ]