SAINT NASHVILLE

Darlington explores the memories, sounds, and culture of a booze-soaked Nashville in this themed poetry collection.

The book opens with an untitled scene that features a dance floor under “honky-tonk lights,” a waitress who was once the speaker’s wife, and memories of “how we’d sing / out our guts.” Another nameless poem about a particular youthful summer evokes dripping ice cream cones, scuffed knees, and small fires. In “My Guitar,” a speaker recalls a sensual rendezvous in a woodcutter’s house. “My Heart Is Not Yet a House” contemplates the complicated nature of being part of a couple, and in a songlike work, the poet explores the Nashville sound: “It’s empty beds, broken homes, long illness and lost love/ It’s struggle with substance stuck on mean like a glove / It’s moms and dads who no longer come around.” Another untitled poem mourns the modernization of Nashville and people’s ignorance of the city’s country music history. Later, a speaker wonders, “What comes after we are young and no longer drinking?” Darlington arouses all five senses throughout this collection, and his economy of language is also impressive; in as few as five brief lines, he can capture an intimate snapshot of a couple: “let’s lie here together / a little longer / and give this endless / summer song / another listen.” The poet uses masterful metaphors and similes throughout this collection, as when he describes a man “as lonely as the sound of a backdoor slapping” and a singing voice that’s sweet “like the dry creek bed flooded with syrup.” These poems are both vulnerable and melancholy, and they manage to tap into the bittersweet nostalgia of a beloved time and place that is ultimately fleeting. Darlington effectively plays with form throughout, although one can’t help but wish there were audio accompaniment to these highly musical works.

A poignant poetic depiction of life in the South.