Book update: sent to the printer, new launch location, and blurbs

A little over a month until publication

A juvenile barred owl from 2017 in Nanaimo.

A brief relief from hunger was sent to the printer on Monday.

This means that in five or six weeks, settled in my new home in Winnipeg, I’ll hold the book in my hands. It’s a surreal thought.

For one, I thought I’d never afford to purchase a home and escape the horror of renting in British Columbia, from the extreme rents to the constant upheaval of moving.

And secondly, the book is the culmination of a lot of work and, in a way, my survival. I’ve long dreamed of writing and publishing a poetry collection, and I’ve been working on this particular one for half my adult life. The book wouldn’t have been possible, of course, if I didn’t survive my addiction in the first place (interestingly, A brief relief from hunger comes out in early September, which is also the ten-year mark of my recovery).

So it’s surreal that, in a few weeks, I’ll have a book of poetry out in the world while enjoying housing security (and bedroom closets) with my wife Harper.

The thought also fills me up with gratitude.

So many people have helped me get to this place, many of whom subscribe to this newsletter.

Thank you, thank you, thank you.

I hope you find something meaningful in my poems.

New Regina book launch location

I’ve moved my book launch in Regina from Penny University Bookstore to Tuppenny Coffee and Books, which just opened this month.

Tuppenny, which is the sister store of Penny University, offers more space for readings.

Date: September 23rd, 2023 at 7 p.m.

Location: Tuppenny Coffee and Books, 1433 Hamilton St Unit 107, Regina

Please note: The event will be masked for accessibility. Free masks will be provided.

Blurbs are in

Thank you so much to Délani Valin, Bronwen Tate, Curtis LeBlanc, and Susan Musgrave for writing blurbs for the book. You can check them out below.

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“Reading A brief relief from hunger is stepping into a wilderness where safety is tenuous, societal neglect is assured, and survival is never guaranteed. The toxic drug supply crisis and its victims intimately populate the landscape—a place otherwise collectively rammed to the margins in both cities and in hearts. Spenser Smith knows these woods well—he identifies the barred owls flying overhead, the scrawled epitaphs to lost friends on trees. He answers the echoing cries of cruel Facebook comments mocking overdose survivors with a thoughtful, defiant compassion. He’s adept with twists and turns: a poetic research paper on construction workers, Yelp reviews of treatment centres, and surprising letters to parents and friends. Technically engaging and bursting with innovation, this is a book that both commiserates and shakes awake. Smith knows the way back to Grandma’s house and her cabbage rolls, but A brief relief from hunger encourages us towards the kind of future that will feed us all.”

– Délani Valin, author of Shapeshifters

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“Spenser Smith’s A brief belief from hunger looks with clear-eyed tenderness at addiction alongside other forms of pain and hunger. This urgent debut collection challenges the dehumanizing rhetoric of news and social media comment sections with their talk of ‘bad choices’ and ‘culling.’ Intimate epistolary poems ask if a friend lost to overdose might have experienced the bliss of a gorging owl or liken a recorded voice to naloxone’s capacity to revive. In deft destabilizing lines, contexts blur, and accepted truisms are set askew: a bobcat may be a digging machine or a cat with ‘Golden eyes, ears tipped with black trophies,’ a needle may carry fentanyl or the scent of Douglas fir. Ultimately, these powerful poems invite us to question which behaviours and appetites we accept as natural and worthy of care. ‘It will take a new vocabulary to love junkies,’ Smith writes, ‘One without the word “junkie.””

– Bronwen Tate, author of The Silk the Moths Ignore

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“Smith’s debut is simmering with courage, steeped in ‘the dignity in being, scorched like nicotine.’ His voice is that of a ‘man without an interest in hammers’ still doing the poetic work of breaking open the past to see what the pressures of addiction, survival, and gender expectation have wrought within. These poems are paragons of empathy, diamond-hard. They will be with me for a very long time.”

– Curtis LeBlanc, author of Sunsetter

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“If you’ve never shot coke in your bedroom while your grandma cooks cabbage rolls in the kitchen, this book is for you. Subjects in these poems are closer than they appear.”

– Susan Musgrave, author of Exculpatory Lilies