dear Hermes ...

This book of poetry experiments with the poem as travelogue, drawing inspiration from European mythology and a family history immigration and displacement. By turns joyous and adventurous, melancholy and nostalgic, Michelle Smith's debut collection of poems showcases a wide-ranging fascination with places, people, and story. Smith's limpid and humane handling of an array of themes, emotions, and styles—her Norwegian ancestry, her Canadian Prairie heritage, the significance of family, the fragility of memory, world travel, ekphrasis, myth, and more—exemplifies the lyric self on a poetic grand tour, or pilgrimage, to meet the world. Framed by imaginative travelogues addressed to Greek gods, dear Hermes... offers readers an escape and an entrance—out of time and into the poet's luminous experience. Readers who appreciate clear lyric and fleet voicing will relish Smith's poetry.