| Author | Message | ||
| ~M~
Board Administrator Username: mjm Post Number: 29227 Registered: 11-1998 |
Dear Membership – As many of you already know, steve and I were fortunate enough to attend the Split This Rock Poetry Festival held in Washington, DC, on March 20 through 23, 2008. And as you also might know, Patricia Smith – poet, author, activist, four-time national poetry slam champion, and the current quarter’s IBPC judge – was a featured speaker at this event. I have been familiar with and loved Ms. Smith’s work for about a decade now and it was a particular honor to hear her speak in person. And so this week, my featured selection is Teahouse of the Almighty by Patricia Smith. This is her most recent collection of poetry and is not only a National Poetry Series winner, but was also awarded the 2007 Paterson Poetry Prize. Ms. Smith is an electrifying poet, both on the stage (from the Sorbonne to Carnegie Hall) and on the page. She was featured in the film Slamnation, and on the HBO series Def Poetry Jam. She is the author of three previous collections of poetry, the children’s book Janna and the Kings, and is co-author of Africans in America: America’s Journey through Slavery. If you are interested in exploring contemporary American poets who are unafraid to tell it like it is, then this is a book you must read. The poetry in this volume covers many diverse themes including family, love, and violence with unflinching realism while employing language that is both accessible and full of grace. Each poem is a story, and there is a wide variety of voices, all of them very true-to-life and brutally honest. There is great horror here and also great beauty. Ms. Smith is compelling, a true tour de force, and the poems in this volume will definitely hold you spellbound. They could even provide you with inspiration for powerful poems of your own. This book is definitely worth much more than its $10.20 cover price. Teahouse of the Almighty by Patricia Smith is available in the WPF BookShop under “Admin’s Featured Five-Star Book Picks." Love, M (Administrator) ______________________________________________________________________________________ Teahouse of the Almighty poems by Patricia Smith ______________________________________________________________________________________ BOOK DESCRIPTION Excerpts from Back Cover: “Teahouse of the Almighty is searing, honest, well-crafted, and full of the real world transformed by Patricia Smith’s fine ear for nuance and the shaking of the soul’s duties. I was weeping for the beauty of poetry when I read the end of the final poem.” -- Edward Sanders, National Poetry Series Judge “These poems are so fierce and tender, so unflinching, so loud and exquisite, so carefully crafted, so important, so right-on. They can make you gasp, rage, weep, belly-laugh, throw your arms open to them and the worlds they contain, push away or punch at the wrongs they chronicle. They bear such terrible beauty. Brava to Miss Patricia Smith, who pulls poems from the center of the earth.” -- Elizabeth Alexander “Patricia Smith is a buzz saw of a poet – she has more poetry in any one of her poems than most poets have in a whole book! Her urgent, unquiet voice is necessary.” -- Thomas Lux “What power. Smith’s poetry is all poetry. And visceral. Her poems get under the skin of their subjects. Their passion and empathy, their real worldliness, are blockbuster.” -- Marvin Bell “Not many poets will make you laugh out loud, grow uneasily warm with the recognition of self, sit riveted by the sheer shock of contending with human suffering, and feel as if you are alone with her as she tells her stories. But not many poets are Patricia Smith and not many books are as delightful and moving as her splendid Teahouse of the Almighty. Her secret is an absolute comfort in her own voice – her poems arrive with assurance and force.” -- Kwame Dawes “Patricia Smith is a powerful poet whose work gets stronger with each book. She will knock your socks off.” -- Stephen Dobyns EDITORIAL REVIEWS From Publishers Weekly “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, Smith (Big Towns, Big Talk, 1992) receded from the scene in recent years after her career as a newspaper journalist ended in scandal. This National Poetry Series–winning volume marks a triumphal return, showing an energetic writer with four urgent subjects. She depicts endangered children. She celebrates sex and sexuality, from the public display of celebrities to the power of the female orgasm: "Don't hate me because I'm multiple." She considers the heritage of black American art, in musical performance and in writing. Finally, she describes the experience of performance itself, with all its pride and embarrassment: "Angry, jubilant, weeping poets... we are all/ saviors, reluctant hosannas in the limelight." Several poems also animate the troubled lives of famous blues singers; elsewhere, a mother considers how her incarcerated son became a "jailhouse scribe." A superb variety of lines and forms—short and long, hesitant and rapid-fire—gives the book additional depth. Smith even offers fine advice: "Breathe/ like your living depends on it.” Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. TABLE OF CONTENTS Building Nicole's Mama Giving Birth to Soldiers It Had the Beat Inevitable Missippi's Legs walloping! magnifying of a guy's anatomy easily 10 Ways to Get Ray Charles and Ronald Reagan Into the Same Poem The World Won't Wait Listening at the Door The End of a Marriage Boy Dies, Girlfriend Gets His Heart Dumpster, Wastebaskets, Shallow Graves To 3, No One in the Place Sacrifice My Million Fathers, Still Here Past How to Be a Lecherous Little Old Black Man and Make Lots of Money Hallelujah With Your Name Little Poetry Can't Hear Nothing for That Damned Train Drink, You Motherfuckers Deltateach Creatively Loved Elegantly Ending Sex and Music Map Rappin' In the Audience Tonight Weapon Ultimate Scribe The Circus Is In Town Her Other Name Forgotten in All This Down 4 the Up Stroke Women Are Taught Look at 'Em Go Stop the Presses What You Pray Toward What Men Do With Their Mouths Dream Dead Daddy Walking Writing Exercise Breathing Outside My Binder The Thrill Is On Blues Through 2 Bone Fireman Psyche! Related to the Buttercup, Blooms in Spring When Dexter King Met James Earl Ray All His Distressing Disguises Teahouse of the Almighty Running for Aretha When the Burning Begins . |
