Reviews for Smoke from This Altar

The average rating for Smoke from This Altar based on 2 reviews is 3 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2020-11-29 00:00:00 Jack Arminius Back in February of this year (when few imagined that 2020 wouldn't be just another normal year --in some ways, it seems an epoch ago!), I gave up on this book; but for some reason, at the time, I didn't write any note explaining why. While it's still fairly fresh in my mind, I decided to do that now. I'd resolved, at the end of last year, to try to read at least one book of poetry every year, starting this year. This one seemed like a natural choice to begin that program with, since I'm a fan of Louis L'Amour's fiction and count him as a favorite author; so this, his only poetry collection, had been on my radar and to-read shelf for ages. I knew little or nothing about his poetry, but I expected something that would have a basic literary vision and underlying message similar to that of his fiction. Unfortunately, it proved to be a disappointment. Despite the religious connotations of the title, L'Amour's poetry is not religion-oriented. That wasn't the deal-breaker; poetry doesn't have to be Christian-themed, or about religious subjects, for me to like it. But although it's technically accomplished, L'Amour's poetry was mostly "lyric" poetry, that is, poems expressing his personal feelings. And at least at this stage of his life (when the collection was first published, he was only 31, and still single; this edition contains some additional poems written later in his life, but I didn't read that far), his feelings were mostly profoundly sad, angsty, and despairing, redolent with emotional pain. The loneliness of a rootless wanderer who'd traveled the world, but at the cost of having a home and personal ties, and the sorrow of failed romantic relationships, bulk large as themes; but even where these are absent, there's plenty of jaundiced vision and woe to go around. A couple of poems I read that try to be upbeat are mostly celebrations of human hubris, gloried in from a purely anthropocentric, secular perspective. So all in all, the collection wasn't for me (though others might appreciate it more). I found it a depressing downer, and I realized I was finding my reading sessions a miserable chore rather than a pleasure. So it was definitely time to quit! L'Amour went on to become a distinctive and powerful voice in 20th-century American fiction; I've greatly liked a number of his books in that form, and hope to read a great many more. But the fact that, after 1939, he stuck almost entirely to that form says something about his own estimation of where his true literary gifts lay; and I'm inclined to agree with him there!

Review # 2 was written on 2013-07-01 00:00:00 Thomas Goodman L'Amour transports you into the lonely and beautiful places he has visited in these poems. They show his facility with words and his love of the frontier. The mystery in nature is only partly received by a heart that is reaching out, seeking, calling, wandering. I'm not really into poetry, but I think Thoreau would have appreciated these.