Su Smallen • Weight of Light

Su Smallen’s Weight of Light is precise and questioning. Her attention to the smallest details reveals deep passion behind her quiet watchfulness. In Smallen’s search for meaning we see that everything in the universe moves — even the inanimate and the dead. Algebra, physics, dance, spirituality, and art are all included, and behind these subjects, a clock is ticking. Remarkably, there is peacefulness in her acceptance of the transitory world — even in her knowledge of the inevitability of grief.

Praise for Weight of Light

Su Smallen's poems are wonderfully faithful to the world, its unanswerable questions and undeniable mysteries. — Jim Moore, author of Lightning at Dinner: Poems (Graywolf Press, 2005).

About Su

Su Smallen’s many honors include the Jane Kenyon Poetry Prize and grants from the Southeastern Minnesota Arts Council. Her poems and essays have appeared in numerous magazines and anthologies, including Bellingham Review, Bloom, Midway Journal, Saint Paul Almanac, and Water~Stone Review.

November 3, 2OO4 / What Prevails

Though last night's grins were eaten out of pumpkins

And conditions suggested a killing frost,

Some pariahs were embraced. The grief that holds

While it happens is different than the let-go

Grief that in the open doorway encloses.

Unlike law, in love there is no exit.

And pariahs, born to the border life, will

Slip limits. Today it is warm enough

To raise from the neglected litter one

Leaf. Look, it's a monarch. CalI her Ruth.

From The Quiet Eye: Thirteen Ways of Looking at Nature (Laurel Collective anthology, 2009)

Su on Writing Poetry

In order to write, I must enter the tea house door. It is a half-sized door. I must bend to enter; I must alter my perception. Each time I wonder how do I enter? Can I do this? I pace the entrance path like a dog rearranging and rearranging its blanket. I bend my head; I fold at elbows, thigh sockets, knees. I write. If I succeed to cross the threshold of the little door, I find myself inside the tea house. White space. A blessing. A flower. Poetry is a Tea House.

From The Double Meaning of Yield: Laurel Poets on Writing Poetry