A local poet explores a community gripped in the cycle of gun violence.

by Mike Maggio

Baltimore Sons, Dean Bartoli Smith's new collection of intense, raw poetry, shows a side of the city of Baltimore that many haven't seen up close. There is most definitely a fun, vibrant side to the city. But tourists and casual day-trippers only see part of the picture: the National Aquarium, the Maryland Science Center, Port Discovery Children’s Museum, the historic ships that grace the Inner Harbor, the Orioles playing at Camden Yards. Beyond all the mummery and museums is an inner-city where gangs and guns hold sway: neighborhoods that get more attention on the local news than all the tourist attractions.

Born and raised in Baltimore, poet and journalist Dean Bartoli Smith lives in the city now and has witnessed the violence and seediness that are obscured behind gentrified facades. His new book of poems, Baltimore Sons–a book that could just as easily be about Washington D.C. or New York City–illustrates the seamier side of the city in raw, unmitigated verse. Poems with titles like “Riots,” “Six Shooters,” and “Bullet Fragments” present a portrait of a city under stress, a city that was once a beacon of commerce but is now fighting for its future. Even the more tender poems such as “At the Bel-Loc Diner,” “Misericordia,” and “Warrior,” ache with raw emotions that overshadow the yearning for love.

Smith’s first book of poetry was the winner of the Washington Writer’s Prize in 2000 (American Boy, Washington Writers Publishing House) and was awarded the Maryland Prize for Literature in 2001. He was educated at the University of Virginia and holds an M.F.A. from Columbia University. He is the director of Duke University Press and an adjunct professor of publishing in the Masters in Professional Studies program at George Washington University.

I’ve been a fan of Dean Bartoli Smith’s for some time and was lucky enough to have a chance to talk with the poet about how his experiences growing up have influenced his life as a poet and a journalist.

Baltimore Sons presents a stark vision of Baltimore and, it would seem, your own life. Just about every poem presents an image of violence. What was it like growing up in Baltimore and how has that informed you as a poet?

60 days old, I was in the audience for my Aunt Carol’s acting debut in The Frog Who Would Be Prince at Mercy High School. The loudspeaker intervened with news  [that President John F. Kennedy had been shot]. I was carried through the hallways of an all-girls Catholic High School to the chapel where students held me in tears. Some years later, on the day after [Kennedy’s brother Robert was shot in 1968], my mom forgot to pick me up from kindergarten. When she arrived, after spending the whole day mourning [Robert Kennedy], she was still in her nightgown. I've always thought that the JFK moment was my first introduction to suffering. Whether I knew it or not, I may have felt it. My parents divorced when I was seven, and that opened my eyes to the world. I got an early taste of loss. 

Were there Italian and Irish neighborhoods? Were these neighborhoods affected by gun violence?

My childhood memories centered around the Orioles, Colts, and Bullets. My first experience with loss came at the hands of the New York Mets in the 1969 World Series. Then my parents divorced–but I still had Brooks Robinson, Johnny Unitas, Frank Robinson, and Wes Unseld to fill the void. There was an innocence and an electricity in the air in those days in Baltimore. Sports provided a sanctuary of box scores, radio play-by-play, and bubble gum cards. I played thousands of innings of curb ball--most of them by myself--inventing the names of players and teams. Memorial Stadium served as my church and when it was torn down--the city collapsed around it. That's a central moment in the book. The neighborhoods came together around the Orioles and the Colts. There was love and insanity there by the bushel. Its destruction destroyed the fabric of the city.  

Has working as a journalist influenced your poetics?

The book is reportage on one level–a journalistic scaffolding. I’m a narrative poet. These things happened. Then I’m drawn to the possibilities of irony and metaphor within that construct–what Stanley Kunitz referred to as the “psychic energy” of a poem. I’m trying to tell stories through poetry in a novel way, unchecked and unhinged at times. 

I have read that you are half Irish and half Italian, a combination that you have described as “volatile – a kind of natural bipolarism.”  How has this affected you as a writer? 

I had poets in my life on both sides of what I call the “narcissists and nuns” family dynamic. My grandmother Queenie Swift on my father’s side and my mother, Dona Bartoli, both wrote excellent poems. They were trying to get somewhere else through their writing. Writing helps me manage the volatility and the violence with small acts of grace (for example, poems). 

Baltimore Sons address the endless epidemic of violence in our country. In a sense, it’s a depiction of hopelessness. There is no redemption, either personal or societal. Do you see a time when violence will decrease?

There is also empathy and hope. There is love. The book is a response to the complacency of those in the city who believe that the murders in Baltimore have nothing to do with them. I couldn’t look the other way. The continuous headline of “unidentified Black male, early 20s, found dead in the trunk” needs to end. The book paints a harsh and searing portrait of place. It’s intended to be a wake-up call.

Some of the poems, such as “Empty the Chamber,” portray an almost intimate relationship with guns and violence. What was it like growing up with guns in the house? 

The collection started with that poem in response to my father purchasing a .357 magnum in 2002. Both the poem and collection were first entitled "My Father's Gun."  This title gave me more of a license to explore the intimacy angle and be creative. My own birth occurred months after a shotgun wedding. My father can shoot basketball and is the best "pure shooter" I know. The gun metaphor reverberates through the book. How does a loaded pistol in a sock drawer relate to one's sense of self-worth or esteem? What does the weapon think and how does the gun relate to its owner on a deeper level? These are questions for the reader to work on. The guns started with my grandfather--carrying the "sawn-off shotgun" during the riots of 1968. The poems are designed to accentuate the gun-crazed nature of our society, raise awareness, and hopefully help to end gun violence one day in Baltimore and beyond.  There are four generations of Baltimore sons (and daughters) in the collection.    We didn't have an awareness of or a curiosity about the real ones [guns]  growing up. They were out of view and rarely spoken of. 

It seems like your father needed guns. Would you agree? Do you have a sense of why that is for some men?  Is it to provide a sense of security or could it come from a sense of inner insecurity?

He may have felt that it was necessary to provide a sense of security. He went to the range and learned how to use it. The safety was on. Guns are embedded into the psyche of the American male from the first John Wayne movie to tonight's 11 pm news. Baltimore Sons explores the root cause of how we got to this place of active shooters on the loose every week. As boys, we were mesmerized by the echo of a Winchester rifle reverberating through the canyon during a western. We played “guns” in the woods. We made our own distinctive sounds of machine guns as we shot each other. The Rifleman, Mannix, The Man from U.N.C.L.E, Daniel Boone--those television shows all reinforced the idea that guns lead to positive outcomes and help keep the peace. Gun violence is a core American value.

Have you yourself been personally affected by gun violence?   

The poem “Bullet Fragments” is a true story. It happened just outside my bedroom window. I can still hear the purposeful and definitive nature of the two shots. I dove to the floor and crawled up slowly to look. Then hum of the ambulance, no siren. Turf wars in what was then the most dangerous neighborhood in DC. Another close brush for me was the DC sniper in the early 2000s. My wife and I lived in Alexandria, and we were afraid to walk the dog. When we did, we'd turn away and wince as each car drove by.  One of the murders occurred less than two miles away at a Home Depot. 

What is an artist’s responsibility for addressing the wrongs of society? Is it enough to reflect the realities of injustice – or do we need to go further? Yes, if we can do it in an artistic way–and it can stand as art and as a call to action. That’s the balancing act to pull off. One of my favorite poetry collections is The Country Between Us by Carolyn Forché about El Salvador. I’m trying to tell stories that foster change. We always need to go further. 

Finally, if there is one thing you would like to be remembered for, what is it?

Baltimore Sons.

Pick up your copy of Baltimore Sons directly from the publisher, small press Stillhouse, Baltimore’s Ivy Bookshop, or your favorite local independent bookseller.

Dean Bartoli Smith is an author, poet, and freelance journalist. His book of poems, American Boy (Washington Writers Publishing House, 2000) won the 2000 Washington Writer's Prize and the Maryland Prize for Literature in 2001. He is also the author of Never Easy, Never Pretty: A Fan, A City, A Championship Season (Temple University Press, 2013). Smith received an M.F.A in Poetry from Columbia University in 1989. He is an adjunct professor of publishing in the Masters in Professional Studies program at George Washington University and the director of Duke University Press.

Mike Maggio has published fiction, poetry, reviews, and Arabic translations in journals and anthologies in the United States and abroad. He serves on the board of the Poetry Society of Virginia and as an associate editor of Potomac Review. He is the author of several books of poetry and fiction, most recently a story collection, Letters from Inside. Find him online at www.MikeMaggio.net.