1st prize: $5,000   -   Deadline: August 1st

Chris Green

MY BROTHER BURIES HIS DOG

He moves furniture for a living, oversized bureaus and beds for the rich. He is big now and dumb with love that animals sense--cats, dogs, squirrels, birds, his pygmy turtles and rabbits, tree frogs--they all take him in, nuzzle his childhood scars, forgive his bad jobs and girlfriends. The middle child who grew up telling us all to fuck off--now a grown man, calls me crying, Why my puppy! (His Great Dane is dead.) He sobs, and I remember how we beat him--Mom, Dad, nuns, coaches, teachers--I know I did. And like animals before a storm, he has premonitions--this time a dream of me crying over Nina's corpse. He says, I want you to think about that. He says it because I'm the godless eldest son who knows everything. So we carry his huge dead dog from the vet to his truck to his backyard. He digs a hole all day then lays her black body in the dark. Weeping, he seals her in with a last block of sod, and between the kiddy pool and the garage we embrace. He whispers, I love you. And in that moment I knew what animals know.

--from RATTLE #21 - Summer 2004

Review by Karen J. Weyant (email)

When a reader ventures into a book by a well-known and accomplished poet, there are, of course, certain expectations. Perhaps, that reader expects a certain style or voice. Perhaps the material should be familiar or comfortable. I was that reader. When I picked up R.T. Smith's newest book, Outlaw Style, I wanted to revisit the south, its history, its music, its people--all subjects I have explored before in Smith's previous works, Brightwood and The Hollow Log Lounge. I was not disappointed. Smith conjures up ghosts that may sound vaguely familiar, but they are far from being echoes of the voices in his earlier works.
 
Smith's collection is divided into three part. Taking center stage (no pun intended) is the actor/assassin John Wilkes Booth as the star of the middle section titled The Booth Prism. For most of us, Booth is the infamous figure leaping from the presidential box at Ford's Theatre after shooting President Abraham Lincoln. Few of us know much about the manhunt afterwards, or even the details of the assassin's personal life. This section's first poem, Booth: A Quick History, relays a brief bio of the man who followed in his father's footsteps to become "America's matinee's idol." From this poem, the reader learns in quick snapshots grounded in narrative verse, the story of Booth. We learn that he "held his liquor well and guaranteed good box office / from St. Louis to Boston." We also know that "After Lee's surrender / he saw everything as theater and tragedy." Finally, we gain insight about Booth's legacy:

acquaintances claimed to meet him in
        Hong Kong, Paris
or the brothels of New Orleans, while
        an effigy alleged
to be his mummy toured the country
        in sideshows...

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