In this sophisticated debut collection, Ronald F. Smits deftly weaves the comic with the tragic as he vividly recreates days past in rural Pennsylvania. With a boyish charm, the eighty poems in Push lyrically recall baseball games, campouts under the stars, and dusty treks along lonely back roads—bringing to life a vision of mid-century America that is by turns nostalgic and clear-eyed, humorous and heartfelt. A masterly evocation of a place and a time that feel quintessentially American, Push opens our eyes to the twinned power of literature and memory.
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Table of Contents
Grandpa’s Glass Eye
The Underground Fort
Hanging Out the Wash
Gutter Ball
Bottle Caps
Robbers
Who Needs Fort Apache?
The Water Pistol
The Birth of Venus
Ice Skating
34 C
Genu
Play
Trajectories
Vision
The Trestle Bridge at Mahoning Creek
The Rose Petunia
Near the Andy Warhol Museum
The Watercolors of East Carson Street
Morning
Drying the Dishes
Confessions
Tootsie
Dog Dirt
Crossing the Bayonne Bridge
On the Turnpike Bridge
Bridges
The Boulevard Pool
Hardpack
Ray
Relatives
Push
Brass
Dragons
Sleeping in Pine Beach
A Map for My Mother
The Kaskaskia River
Day Care
Wetlands
Wolf Creek
Under My Arms
Black Rocks
Dancing with the Rocks in the Cowanshannock
The Whale Rocks
White Whales at Buttermilk Falls
Humpback
Design
Surfing
Agent
Natural Science
On Seeing Alaska at an Early Age
Ice Jam Above Kittanning
Listen
Spring
Rain
Wild Columbine
Womb
Still Life
The Deer at Dusk
The New Journalism
Banded
Teacher Preparation
The Right Answer
Tamaroa
Word Perfect
Tenure
Singapore
Internal Revenue
Troy Hill
The History of Flight
Ottocento
Conventional Wisdom
Drifters
Procession
Sunday on the South Side
The Pennsylvania Turnpike
The Spirit of Pears
The National Formulary