LETTERS OF TRANSIT, "Fictions" by Frederick Smock
Publication Date: November 10, 2024
Paperback, 58 pages
ISBN: 978-1-956782-83-7
The late author and educator Frederick Smock was known primarily for his poetry and for his literary essays that most often also centered on his life in poetry. So what to make of this small posthumous prose collection of what he called “fictions”? (Are they even indeed fiction, as there clearly is more than a little autobiography in these pages?) Though ostensibly a body of small travel vignettes, often the title location (Paris, Amalfi, Oxford et.al.) serves merely as a prompt for memory and observation, an excuse to tell a story, to share some delightfully obscure lesson out of history and culture. What Smock truly transits through these travels is the world of his imagination, fueled by his insatiable love of life, of the world, of people. And most certainly of poetry, and of teaching, his two vocations. It may be that the only fiction to this parting volume is that Smock is writing anything other than poetry, doing anything other than teaching, whatever form his words may have taken. And how lovely it is to be able to join him on the journey.
Praise for Frederick Smock & Letters of Transit
What difference do we make in the “crack of light between two eternities of darkness,” Smock quotes Nabokov. Smock seems to understand the purpose of being human – it is to be the conscious observer. Fred Smock has brought moments to life in beautiful writing.
—Nana Lampton, author of Wash the Dust from My Eyes: A year in the life of John Mason
The prose in Letters of Transit is so beautifully rendered, full of images, intimate in tone, that one longs to be able to thank the author for leaving open this window to his so generous life of literature, learning, and imagination.
—Sena Jeter Naslund, author of Ahab’s Wife, Kentucky Poet Laureate 2005-2006
Frederick Smock’s narrators—writers, artists, travelers—speak to us from both the grand cities of Europe and its lesser-known hamlets, from the banks of the Ohio and Old San Juan. One finds in these gem-like narratives an attention to both the particulars of the lived moment and to the palimpsests of history that resonates with the prose writings of W.S. Merwin. Letters of Transit invites us to approach the world with wonder and tenderness—each crystalline, lyrical observation is a gift.
—Flora K. Schildknecht, author of Megafauna
Letters of Transit is a poet’s travelogue, a tribute to the eye that carefully observes various places in the world—Paris, Arles, Oxford, Copenhagen, Nice, and the Cote d’Azur—in sketches that milk each place for its beauties and comforts, its history and revealed humanity. The early American psychologist William James said that “scenery seems to wear in one’s consciousness better than any element in life.” Fred Smock amply provides the proof as these travel notes remind us that beyond our customary kitchens and bedsteads the exotic and the commonplace dance.
—Richard Taylor, author of Fathers, Kentucky Poet Laureate 1999-2000
About the Author
Frederick Smock was a long-time professor of English at Bellarmine University, Louisville. He served as Kentucky Poet Laureate from 2017-2018. His previous volumes with Broadstone were Pax Intrantibus: A Meditation of the Poetry of Thomas Merton, a book of poems, The Bounteous World, and a collection of literary essays, On Poetry. He also published several volumes of poetry with Larkspur Press among his many other books.
Publication Date: November 10, 2024
Paperback, 58 pages
ISBN: 978-1-956782-83-7
The late author and educator Frederick Smock was known primarily for his poetry and for his literary essays that most often also centered on his life in poetry. So what to make of this small posthumous prose collection of what he called “fictions”? (Are they even indeed fiction, as there clearly is more than a little autobiography in these pages?) Though ostensibly a body of small travel vignettes, often the title location (Paris, Amalfi, Oxford et.al.) serves merely as a prompt for memory and observation, an excuse to tell a story, to share some delightfully obscure lesson out of history and culture. What Smock truly transits through these travels is the world of his imagination, fueled by his insatiable love of life, of the world, of people. And most certainly of poetry, and of teaching, his two vocations. It may be that the only fiction to this parting volume is that Smock is writing anything other than poetry, doing anything other than teaching, whatever form his words may have taken. And how lovely it is to be able to join him on the journey.
Praise for Frederick Smock & Letters of Transit
What difference do we make in the “crack of light between two eternities of darkness,” Smock quotes Nabokov. Smock seems to understand the purpose of being human – it is to be the conscious observer. Fred Smock has brought moments to life in beautiful writing.
—Nana Lampton, author of Wash the Dust from My Eyes: A year in the life of John Mason
The prose in Letters of Transit is so beautifully rendered, full of images, intimate in tone, that one longs to be able to thank the author for leaving open this window to his so generous life of literature, learning, and imagination.
—Sena Jeter Naslund, author of Ahab’s Wife, Kentucky Poet Laureate 2005-2006
Frederick Smock’s narrators—writers, artists, travelers—speak to us from both the grand cities of Europe and its lesser-known hamlets, from the banks of the Ohio and Old San Juan. One finds in these gem-like narratives an attention to both the particulars of the lived moment and to the palimpsests of history that resonates with the prose writings of W.S. Merwin. Letters of Transit invites us to approach the world with wonder and tenderness—each crystalline, lyrical observation is a gift.
—Flora K. Schildknecht, author of Megafauna
Letters of Transit is a poet’s travelogue, a tribute to the eye that carefully observes various places in the world—Paris, Arles, Oxford, Copenhagen, Nice, and the Cote d’Azur—in sketches that milk each place for its beauties and comforts, its history and revealed humanity. The early American psychologist William James said that “scenery seems to wear in one’s consciousness better than any element in life.” Fred Smock amply provides the proof as these travel notes remind us that beyond our customary kitchens and bedsteads the exotic and the commonplace dance.
—Richard Taylor, author of Fathers, Kentucky Poet Laureate 1999-2000
About the Author
Frederick Smock was a long-time professor of English at Bellarmine University, Louisville. He served as Kentucky Poet Laureate from 2017-2018. His previous volumes with Broadstone were Pax Intrantibus: A Meditation of the Poetry of Thomas Merton, a book of poems, The Bounteous World, and a collection of literary essays, On Poetry. He also published several volumes of poetry with Larkspur Press among his many other books.
Publication Date: November 10, 2024
Paperback, 58 pages
ISBN: 978-1-956782-83-7
The late author and educator Frederick Smock was known primarily for his poetry and for his literary essays that most often also centered on his life in poetry. So what to make of this small posthumous prose collection of what he called “fictions”? (Are they even indeed fiction, as there clearly is more than a little autobiography in these pages?) Though ostensibly a body of small travel vignettes, often the title location (Paris, Amalfi, Oxford et.al.) serves merely as a prompt for memory and observation, an excuse to tell a story, to share some delightfully obscure lesson out of history and culture. What Smock truly transits through these travels is the world of his imagination, fueled by his insatiable love of life, of the world, of people. And most certainly of poetry, and of teaching, his two vocations. It may be that the only fiction to this parting volume is that Smock is writing anything other than poetry, doing anything other than teaching, whatever form his words may have taken. And how lovely it is to be able to join him on the journey.
Praise for Frederick Smock & Letters of Transit
What difference do we make in the “crack of light between two eternities of darkness,” Smock quotes Nabokov. Smock seems to understand the purpose of being human – it is to be the conscious observer. Fred Smock has brought moments to life in beautiful writing.
—Nana Lampton, author of Wash the Dust from My Eyes: A year in the life of John Mason
The prose in Letters of Transit is so beautifully rendered, full of images, intimate in tone, that one longs to be able to thank the author for leaving open this window to his so generous life of literature, learning, and imagination.
—Sena Jeter Naslund, author of Ahab’s Wife, Kentucky Poet Laureate 2005-2006
Frederick Smock’s narrators—writers, artists, travelers—speak to us from both the grand cities of Europe and its lesser-known hamlets, from the banks of the Ohio and Old San Juan. One finds in these gem-like narratives an attention to both the particulars of the lived moment and to the palimpsests of history that resonates with the prose writings of W.S. Merwin. Letters of Transit invites us to approach the world with wonder and tenderness—each crystalline, lyrical observation is a gift.
—Flora K. Schildknecht, author of Megafauna
Letters of Transit is a poet’s travelogue, a tribute to the eye that carefully observes various places in the world—Paris, Arles, Oxford, Copenhagen, Nice, and the Cote d’Azur—in sketches that milk each place for its beauties and comforts, its history and revealed humanity. The early American psychologist William James said that “scenery seems to wear in one’s consciousness better than any element in life.” Fred Smock amply provides the proof as these travel notes remind us that beyond our customary kitchens and bedsteads the exotic and the commonplace dance.
—Richard Taylor, author of Fathers, Kentucky Poet Laureate 1999-2000
About the Author
Frederick Smock was a long-time professor of English at Bellarmine University, Louisville. He served as Kentucky Poet Laureate from 2017-2018. His previous volumes with Broadstone were Pax Intrantibus: A Meditation of the Poetry of Thomas Merton, a book of poems, The Bounteous World, and a collection of literary essays, On Poetry. He also published several volumes of poetry with Larkspur Press among his many other books.