Flying Red Horse
Author: Dale Martin Smith
Publisher: Talonbooks (2021)
Flying Red Horse dwells on fatherhood and masculinity, the conditions of whiteness that pressure them, global surveillance, and climate change. It draws attention to the spectacle and surveillance governing Canada and the United States. It asks where individuals stand in relation to the global technological power of connectivity and disconnection that disturbs contemporary social relations. Without seeking resolution, in both verse and essay, it puts these issues into lyric correspondence.
"What is lyric’s relation to history, to a public today? In this poetry—the impossible heart beating intensities through every human murmur and whisper that manages to lift itself up into song into solace. In this poetry, the deep neon glow of America visible from across fake nations’ lines, pulsating broken geographies, rent histories, torn earth. Deep gratitude to Dale Smith for willing more beauty and more tenderness into the world."
–Stephen Collis
"In lines of great lyric discernment with an eye to atrocities of the past in the present, Dale Smith reimagines the song form as our consummate equipment for living. Flying Red Horse confirms his breathtaking artistry that—insofar as any time of innocence is over—holds at once a place, an exhortation, a persevering, a reverie, a promise."
–Roberto Tejada