The Fortunate Era (Carnegie Mellon Poetry Series)
“In his profound new book, Arthur Smith lets us see “. . . the ruins // of our lives burning in the fires, in the rubble, / In the work of living, in my mind.” The source of the book’s title, The Fortunate Era, is the observation of a Nobel Laureate in physics, who said, “We live in the fortunate era . . . in which there is matter.” This peculiar revelatory vision of matter, of our material world, the world that burns in the paradise furnace of Smith’s imagination is as finite and startling as a spider in a blossom, stars, a tiger, a lover—or long-lasting grief. These poems are made of both familiar and elegantly spinning insight, real as rock. The flames bank and re-flare, but what Smith is shoring up for us in the ruins is the pure lyrical restraint of master: these poems re-make the way we see the world, right down to each fiery particle.” (Carol Muske-Dukes)