Erin Elizabeth Smith’s poetry collection, The Naming of Strays, deals with subjects ranging from love, one night stands, and infidelity to geographical displacement and human isolation. The book is organized into four sections, all of which give a different definition of the word “stray.” By pointing out the meaning as it is defined in the Oxford English Dictionary, Smith is participating in the literal “naming of strays,” which complements the feline imagery that is implemented throughout the book. The order in which the definitions of “stray” are listed is important, because it seems to indicate a chronological lifelong journey that everyone shares.

The first section begins with the first definition of “stray,” which is “to wander from the direct way, deviate” (13). The poems in this chapter are about base sensory reactions and the childhood realization that we all have to follow our own path alone. The section begins with “Sweet,” a poem that contains imagery involving the first taste of pleasure, “the wet scrawl/ of it in the ridges of suckling mouths” (15). In “Sweet,” “Aromatics,” and the prose poem “Drawing What I Hear,” Smith writes about the senses in such a way that readers will smell what she is cooking and hear its “low, long crackle” (18). Along with the childlike learning of tastes, smells, and sounds, this section is about the beginnings of a person’s chosen path. The poem “Transformation” describes the direct way to womanhood – from a “walking stick” to a “full mane” to flirtations with “a dashing man” (23). The speaker does not follow this path; she realizes that she is different, but that she “cannot be this lounge chair/ in the spiced sun forever.”

Section II of The Naming of Strays shifts from the theme of choosing a lonely path to that of dissatisfaction with that path. These poems are about feeling lost, becoming impatient, and wallowing in misery as if it were a natural state. It begins with the definition “to wander from the path of rectitude, to err” (27). Many of the poems are set during the stagnancy of winter; in an eponymous poem, Smith describes Winter as “a pony-tailed redhead” who berates the speaker for trying to move past this stagnation by putting out “a goddamn fruit basket” (31). In this section, the poems all seem to indicate that what once worked no longer does, and that a change is on the horizon. “Fidelity” is an example of this theme, because it tells the story of fidelity, ironically, to the distance between the speaker and her lover (he is in London), which predictably results in her infidelity when she sleeps with another man. She longs to have what she once had, but ultimately refuses to let go; she “errs” by rejecting the opportunity for change.

The poems in the third section are prefaced by “Stray – to wander free from control, to roam about” (Smith 43). The winter is over and it is time for new growth. These poems are about relinquishing control and roaming in search of a home. Section III indicates the need to decide not only where to be, but who to be. An example of this multifaceted dislocation is “On Being Erroneously Called a New Yorker Again,” in which Smith explores what it really means to be a Southerner and how, once you identify yourself as one, you cannot truly be anything else—being a Southerner as an inheritance. The South has claimed the speaker in such a way that, though she would like to “cradle” New York in her arms as she writes in the poem “Binghampton,” it is “a story” that is no longer hers (48). And later,

But I inherited another city –
dimpled palmetto forts, the dignity
of Southern dead, songs about cars,
cornbread and cast iron. Where I’m from,
we do not believe in New York,
but still, I’m Wendy,
sometimes, in her bed,
staring into the sad black
of a story that is no longer mine.
(“On Being Erroneously Called a New Yorker Again” 51)

There is a sense of being displaced in many of the poems, but it is clear that while she has an appreciation for all the places she has been, the South has her heart.
The final section of the book serves as the resting place for the isolation, self-doubt, and overall homelessness the previous poems generally share. It begins with the titular poem “The Naming of Strays,” with the wanderings or the “preamble” that occurs before finding human companionship, and the fear of its absence that is so often alluded to throughout the book. It ends with the speculation that love is “simply the naming of strays.”

Maybe love is simply the naming of strays.
And any name will do. Each comes
equally from the lips to make him
gallop towards us
through the yard
and home. (63)

The speaker realizes that the perfect representation of the human need to be loved is exhibited through a stray cat’s willingness to be named anything; if you call it, it will answer.
We are all strays seeking a connection, and we will respond to love, without regard to how we are being labeled, so that we might stop our roaming and find a home. Like the poem “The Naming of Strays,” “Theories of Earth” and “On Learning To Be Okay” celebrate hope and the understanding that finding love and companionship — being a “named stray” — is finding a home.

The Naming of Strays is such an enjoyable and effective collection of poetry because it draws a connection among all people. With one word and its four different meanings, Smith has outlined a journey that everyone must take, down a lonely path. We all err. We all roam. We are all looking for a name.

ERIN HOLDEN
University of Louisiana at Lafayette