Air à boire [2009] - Benjamin John Smith

"The whole beer | Every thing— | My filth, my stink. | All awash and then down a hole. | Like having sex |—with a virgin | Who wanted her first time | to be something special"

After reading the poetry of Ben John Smith, I was reminded of Charles Bukowski's "Shoelace" poem where he states that "it's not the large things that send a man to the madhouse . . . it's the continuing series of small tragedies that send a man to the madhouse." Like Bukowski, Smith delves into the existential aspects of everyday life with much humor and pathos—whether he's writing about getting drunk in the bathtub, love making, watching television, selling used cars or taking pot shots at some fat slob on the beach.

With great titles such as "Sleep like a vagina," "Cavity" and "Clean like a fox," it's easy to see we're not talking about Wordsworth or Coleridge here. This is the kind of day-to-day shit that people can actually relate to. And some of the descriptions are just fucking priceless such as "snotty bubbles," "blushing crotch" and "hurls of stomach gravy." Great shit, real uncharted territory here.

Offbeat, totally original and always entertaining, the outstanding poetry in this collection goes down well like a good bottle of cheap wine at 3 AM. In his first book of poetry, Smith has crafted an authentic voice in a cultural wasteland.

For information about purchasing Air à boire, visit Smith's blog, Horror, Sleaze and Trash.