Baltimore Sons

"The poems in Smith's collection Baltimore Sons aim to make sense of suffering. With razor-sharp language that balances witness and wound, Smith recounts the past and aftermath of three generations of sons struggling to navigate life on the fringes of society. Filled with the volatile heat of a loaded gun, these poems astound and transform us. Baltimore Sons grounds us in truth and sorrow echoing those too familiar entanglements of American life-class, race, and violence. Yet, in the spirit of Lucille Clifton, there's the quiet undertow of survival celebrated within." 

- Crystal Simone Smith, author of Dark Testament 

"'We are all targets. / We are all unsafe,' Dean Smith writes in this plain spoken collection that unflinchingly explores the nation's gun culture-what it offers and what it takes away. Always the threat of violence looms among these lines, but also beauty, love, and even joy. Even hope." 

- Gerry LaFemina, author of Graffiti Heart 

"The word 'home' conjures warmth and domesticity, a good life worth fighting for. But in Baltimore Sons, home is more complex: a landscape of harrowing childhood memories set against a city wracked by gun violence, drugs, and riots. To navigate such a place-and to lovingly raise a family in the midst of chaos-is today's almost insurmountable problem. This is why we need a poet like Dean Smith, who, if not fully reconciling love and damage, charts a clear-eyed path for those who long to be at home in the world with a survivor's sense of grace, acceptance, and wisdom." 

- Richard Jones, editor of Poetry East