POEMS FOR THE END OF THE WORLD by Suzi Q. Smith

Poems for the End of the World is a collection of poems which examine, explore, and contend with both internal and external indicators of world endings. And beginnings. And endings. And beginnings.

Suzi Q. Smith’s visceral poems in her new collection POEMS FOR THE END OF THE WORLD is a study of beginnings and endings. The poet asks “did you forget? the kindness of wind and its longing for your skin? / the unrepentant gaze of desert sky? / the rivers that open their mouths to your sorrows, / ready to carry them some place you don’t need to go?” Smith encourages the reader to “abandon old wounds to the soil / until they fertilize it. everything, / even waste, has a purpose.” Smith’s collection examines how transitions/change can both damage us and save us.

–Leah Huete de Maines