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let
me leave you with a few words
books by, well,
me
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Poetry
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Blood
Dazzler – 2008 National Book Award
Finalist!
In minute-by-minute detail, Patricia Smith tracks Hurricane
Katrina as it transforms into a full-blown mistress
of destruction. From August 23, 2005, the day Tropical
Depression Twelve developed, through August 28 when
it became a Category 5 storm with its “scarlet
glare fixed on the trembling crescent,” to the
heartbreaking aftermath, these poems evoke the horror
that unfolded in New Orleans as America watched on
television.
$16.00 + $2 S&H
This book will arrive signed
by the author. |
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John
Freeman, in naming “Blood Dazzler” one
of NPR’s Top Books of 2008:
“
Hurricane Katrina has receded from the national news,
but the destruction it wrought has found testimony in
literature. Patricia Smith's €erce, blood-in-the-mouth
collection of poems, a €nalist for the National Book
Award, grows out of this disaster and already has the
whiff and feel of folklore. The storm, Smith reminds,
was hardest on those who had the least, many of whom
will never return home again. Inhabiting one voice after
another, she evokes the way total loss can dignify a
paucity of possessions. In other poems, she powerfully
impersonates the storm itself: its bulging, seething
menace; the way it flung people to all corners of America;
how the loss it unleashed felt biblical, a very personal
punishment.”
“ Spiritual
and gutsy, Patricia Smith’s satirical poems lay
New Orleans bare, with Katrina at the driving wheel,
howling and whispering her personsified moments of
destruction and healing. ‘Blood Dazzler’ is
a document of feelings, whose tinges of the blues capture
an urgent witnessing through the natural empathy embedded
in praise, woe, and awe.”—Yusef Komunyakaa
‘
This riveting sequence gives voice to a wild raw whirlwind
that ruined a city and brought on, in turn, a storm of
neglect and murderous indifference. With her radiant
powers of empathy, her fiercely acute ear for the musical
possibilities of American speech, and her undiluted rage,
Patricia Smith makes in Katrina’s wake a sorrowful,
unflinching, and glorious book.”—Mark Doty
- “Blood
Dazzler is Patricia Smith’s impassioned lyric chronicle
of a beloved city in peril, a city whose people were
left to die before us all, a people who were the heart
of our country and lifeblood of our culture. After rising
water, winds and abandonment, after our failure and neglect,
comes this symphony of utterance from the ruins: many-voiced,
poignant, sorrowful and fierce. This is poetry taking
the full measure of its task.”—Carolyn Forche
- "Patricia Smith is one of the best poets around
and has been for a long time. Her Blood Dazzler is full
of capacious soul and formal inventiveness: the compassion
and artfulness necessary to capture the tragedies and
Tragedy of Katrina. Smith is herself a storm of
beautiful, frightening talent. Her words will wash you
or wash you away. I consider this new book a major literary
event."—Terrance Hayes |
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Teahouse
of the Almighty
A National Poetry Series selection
and winner of the Hurston-Wright Legacy Award and Paterson
Poetry Prize.... Judge Edward Sanders said: “I
was weeping for the beauty of poetry when I reached
the end of the final poem.”
$15.00 + $2 S&H
This book will arrive signed by
the author.
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“Smith appears to be that rarest of creatures,
a charismatic slam and performance poet whose artistry
truly survives on the printed page.”—Publisher
Weekly (starred review!)
- “What power. Smith’s poetry is all poetry.
And visceral. Their passion and empathy, their real
worldliness, are blockbuster.”—Marvin Bell
- “Blending feather-wisp feelings with knife-sharp
ghetto talk, the poems mightily fuse Walt Whitman’s
‘barbaric yawp’ with the blues.” –Library
Journal
- "Of all the poets slammin’ in Def Poetry
Jam and performance poetry and dooking out contestants
repeatedly at the National Poetry Slam, Patricia Smith
has both the literary chops on the page and the spirited
mouth to transcend both. Plain and simple.”—
Bob Arnold, Longhouse Publishers & Booksellers
- “Her secret is an absolute comfort in her own
voice—her poems arrive with assurance and force.”—Kwame
Dawes
- “These poems are so fierce and tender, so unflinching,
so loud and exquisite, so carefully crafted, so important,
so right-on.”—Elizabeth Alexander
"There seems to be nothing Patricia Smith can't
write a poem about...her inspirations are various and
dazzling. Smith approaches the themes of love, family,
and violence through accessible, graceful language..."--Entertainment
Weekly, Grade: A
More reviews can be found here.
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Close
to Death
This collection of persona poems is
both a tribute to and searing elegy for the lives of
black men. Widely used to introduce urban youth to poetry,
C2D includes the jolting signature poem “Undertaker.”
$13.00 + $2 S&H
This book will arrive signed by
the author.
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“Smith writes the way Tina Turner sings. . . .
Blues not as comforting lyrics but as truth revealed
in all its rawness … Smith struts with compassion.”
–E. Ethelbert Miller
- “Souls rage from the hellfire of the streets,
and Smith effectively captures the language and urgency,
the rhythms and fury.”—Library Journal
- “One of today’s most authoritative and
promising African-American poets. This is powerful,
demanding, important work.”—Booklist
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Big
Towns, Big Talk
Infused with an irresistible jazz, these poems beg to
be read aloud. Winner of the prestigious Carl Sandburg
Award, Big Towns is a snapshot of a writer/performer blending
the two seamlessly and reaching the height of her powers.
$10 + $2 S&H
This Book will arrive signed by
the author.
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“The voice transcends the individual pain and helps
to nourish us all. These poems are blessings that move
like white light through your veins.”—American
Book Review
- “Smith’s work might be compared to some
of Lucille Clifton’s work, with its double edge
of anger and sensuality…the voice that emerges in
these poems is strong, fearless and passionate.”—Choice |
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Life
According to Motown
Now in its 4th printing, this sparkling debut was birthed
in Chicago’s saloon poetry heyday, when bared souls
first took the stage and the whispered word was “slam.”
A bestseller after more than a decade, it is a classic
by a poetry slam pioneer.
$7 + $2 S&H
This book will arrive signed by
the author.
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Nonfiction
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Africans
in America: America’s Journey Through Slavery
A companion volume to the groundbreaking PBS series, Africans
in America is a lyrical and thoroughly researched chronicle.
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--“A
monumental research effort wed with fine writing…ultimately
shaped by Smith’s beautiful narrative.”—Publisher’s
Weekly
--With its vivid language, and historical integrity, Africans
in America is a major contribution to this country’s
written history.”—Michelle Cliff, San Jose
Mercury News |
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Children's
Literature
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Janna
and the Kings
Smith’s debut children’s book, winner of the
Lee & Low Books’ 2003 New Voices Award, is the
story of a young girl’s warm relationship with her
grandfather. After his death, Janna wonders if his life-long
buddies—the “kings” who inhabit the
neighborhood barbershop—will still consider her
a part of their circle. |
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"The love pours through on every page in this elegantly
written tale about a girl who spends Saturdays with her
grandfather, her king. . . . Sweet and tender, full of
solace."--Family Fun Magazine |
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