Patricia Smith, Author . Coffee House $16 (77p) ISBN 978-1-56689-218-6
Two new books of poetry show us Katrina-devastated New Orleans from the inside.
Blood Dazzler
Patricia Smith
. Coffee House
(Consortium, dist.), $16 paper (90p) ISBN 978-1-56689-218-6
Simultaneously accessible and daring, these short, fiery verses
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Patricia Smith. Coffee House (Consortium, dist.), $16 trade paper (116p) ISBN 978-1-56689-299-5
In her title poem, Smith describes her mother and father debating what to call her. Smith’s mother bestowed on the poet a name fitting for a woman that would “never idly throat the Lord’s name or wear one/ of those thin, sparkled skirts that flirted
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Patricia Smith, Author, Aaron Boyd, Illustrator , illus. by Aaron Boyd. Lee & Low $16.95 (32p) ISBN 978-1-58430-088-5
Smith's debut children's book tenderly portrays a girl's loving relationship with her grandfather. Janna spends every Saturday with Granddaddy, her "best friend in the world." He calls her "Princess Sugarlump" and invites
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Patricia Smith, Author, Charles Johnson, Author, Wgbh Series Research Team, Author Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (HMH) $30 (512p) ISBN 978-0-15-100339-6
Designed to complement a PBS series of the same name, this is much more than a companion book. A monumental research effort wed with fine writing has produced a work that can stand on its own. Studded with a dozen short stories by Johnson, the NBA-wi
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Patricia Smith, Author Ti Chih Ch'u Pan She $6.95 (76p) ISBN 978-0-9624287-2-2
Smith's promising first collection of poems draws from her experiences growing up--``growing tall tangled in bitter root''--on Chicago's segregated West Side during the race-torn '60s. There, the music of Motown defined cultural identity and...
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Patricia Smith, Author Zoland Books $15 (128p) ISBN 978-0-944072-35-6
``A daughter who grew to write screams / can't bring you back,'' Smith writes about her murdered father. In another admittedly autobiographical poem, she describes her teenage son witnessing the murder of his friend. Fueled by passion and a sense of
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Patricia Smith. Triquarterly, $18.95 trade paper (112p) ISBN 978-0-8101-3433-1
Using the 1955 murder of 14-year-old Emmett Till as her anchor, Smith (Shoulda Been Jimi Savannah) explores how the lives of black Americans get cut short by racism, particularly by white fear of black masculinity. She opens this rich and cutting...
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Patricia Smith, Author . Coffee House $15 (91p) ISBN 978-1-56689-193-6
Smith appears to be that rarest of creatures, a charismatic slam and performance poet whose artistry truly survives on the printed page. Present at the creation of the slam in early-'80s Chicago and included in seminal films and anthologies,...
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Patricia Smith. Polis, $15.99 trade paper (320p) ISBN 978-1-947993-68-6
L.A. high school senior Portia Willows, the unreliable narrator of Smith’s intense first novel, suffers from social anxiety disorder. Portia’s parents refuse to get professional help because they are repeatedly assured that her distress is just a...
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Patricia Smith. TriQuarterly, $28 (120p) ISBN 978-0-8101-4563-4
In her evocative latest, Smith (Incendiary Art) combines photographs of Black Americans taken in the 19th century with poems written from the perspective of each image’s subject to construct a wrenching tapestry of the effects of enslavement and...
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