- about
- poems
- photography
- projects
- recognition
- away from the city
- portfolio
- cv
- lee@leesmithwriter.com
- © Lee Smith, 2012
looking out across Victoria on my first full day as an Australian resident
reading at The Compass in London, my final UK appearance for a while
reading at The Compass, Islington - 14th November, 7.30pm
some poets have asked me questions
Mark Burnhope:
A lot of your poems seem rather minimal. When they’re not ‘short’, they often consist of taut, clipped lines, or short numbered sections. One of them is a haibun. There are photographs included in the collection too, which add to a kind of ’travel journal’ feel, where these elements might be collected together to chart a journey. Do you see visuals as an inherent part of your practice? Could you tell us something about your composition and organising principles?
Away from the City is indeed a travel journal, an account of a year spent in two cities. I wanted the poems to form a series of images, short instances of emotion, movement, or even nothingness, that transport the reader through these urban environments. This journey is very much a visual experience.
The photographs create an atmosphere within which the poems emerge. This process reflects how many of the poems were written - observing and capturing visual exchanges, and then interpreting these elements in poetic form.
I can’t write long poems. The images get lost in the writing. I don’t have a huge attention span, so the more immediate these observations are, the more they are allowed to resonate.
I asked a poet some questions
Claire Trevien and I posed a few questions to fellow Salt poet JT Welsch, as part of an interview for our up-coming tour.
New camera is here!
family
My old Kiev camera has been broken for a couple of months now. I’m saving for a new one. I’ll probably go for something like this. I’ve been holding off some projects until I get the new camera. The better I save, the sooner I’ll be able to crack on.
