""Sounds The Living Make" is a deeply satisfying collection of poems. D. James Smith combines the narrator's art with a lyric poet's intense and highly charged sense of setting and language. Whether exploring the labyrinth of memory or the mystery of 'the other, ' here are poems that have the edge and authority of fiercely honed truths." --Peter Everwine "D. James Smith's poems derive, or rather arrive, from the physical world--breaths and glimmers that we will recognize, but with images and language that will transport the reader elsewhere. These poems are intensely felt and beautifully written with surprising layers of complexity that are incantatory and in touch with the sacred." --Gary Short