| Author | Message | ||
| ~M~
Board Administrator Username: mjm Post Number: 31573 Registered: 11-1998 |
Dear Membership – As many of you may have already known or guessed, my work as a poetry editor for an online e-zine as well as my admin position here at Wild means that I am seldom seen without a poetry book in my hand. I have a particular affection for the work of contemporary poets, both the famous and the not-so-famous. Of course, I don’t love all of them. Some I don’t connect with at all, some have a certain something that sparks and keeps my interest, and some I would walk to the ends of the earth to read. Patricia Smith – poet, author, activist, four-time national poetry slam champion, and a former IBPC judge for our online communities – falls into the latter category. I chose as one of my featured selection some time ago her collection entitled Teahouse of the Almighty, and I’m back this time with her newest collection, Blood Dazzler, just released on September 5, 2008. Ms. Smith is an electrifying poet, both on stages 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 four previous collections of poetry, the children’s book Janna and the Kings, and co-author of Africans in America: America’s Journey through Slavery. She is also a former McEver Chair in Writing at Georgia Tech University and is a current faculty member at Cave Canem, as well as a recipient of the Hurston/Wright Legacy Award, the Paterson Poetry Prize, and a Pushcart Prize. In her newest collection, Blood Dazzler, she gives us a storm’s eye view of Hurricane Katrina and the devastation that forever changed New Orleans and America in 2005. Patricia mentioned to me in correspondence before the book’s release that she was afraid that Americans had either forgotten the worst of Katrina or grown bored with the subject and that the book would not do well. I assured her this would probably not be the case. Then along came Hurricanes Gustav and Ike, unfortunately, to prove that my assessment was correct. Hurricanes and the devastation they cause are never far from the public consciousness, particularly in those areas of this country and the world where they pose an unrelenting threat. No matter how you feel about hurricanes and whether or not you live in areas continuously plagued by them, you definitely owe it to yourself as a practicing poet to read this collection. I’ve read many poems in my time about hurricanes in particular and tragedies in general, but few have had the impact on me that Patricia’s do. She chronicles not only what it means to be pulled under in the worst of this tragedy in minute-by-minute detail as Katrina transforms into a mistress of destruction, but adopts the voices of the flailing politicians, the dying, their survivors, and even of the storm itself. The intimacy, depth, and poignancy of the work is stunning. Reading this collection is much like walking straight into the eye of the storm. Honestly, this book blew my brain wide open. Blood Dazzler by Patricia Smith is available in the WPF BookShop under “Admin’s Featured Five-Star Book Picks." Love, M (Administrator) ______________________________________________________________________________________ Blood Dazzler poems by Patricia Smith ______________________________________________________________________________________ BOOK DESCRIPTION Excerpts from Back Cover: “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 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 Forché “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 “Only an echo of the spoken-word diva lingers in Blood Dazzler, and that measured presence is what approximates a necessary passion in this poignant collection. Spiritual and gutsy, Patricia Smith’s satirical poems lay New Orleans bare, with Katrina at the driving wheel, howling and whispering her personified 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.” -- Yosef Komunyakaa EDITORIAL REVIEWS From Publishers Weekly “Simultaneously accessible and daring, these short, fiery verses describe with sorrow and passion the Crescent City just before, during and immediately after Katrina. They describe it from startling points of view—one series of poems takes the vantage point of Luther B, a hardy abandoned dog. Another set speaks for the hurricane itself: every woman begins as weather, Katrina warns, sips slow thunder, knows her hips. Other speakers include the spirit of Voodoo, a nursing home patient, a rapist, George W. Bush and a drag queen whose good humor helps her survive: This damned trod spells ruin for her party pumps. Known now as a poet of both the page and stage, Smith (Teahouse of the Almighty) was present at the creation of the poetry slam, in 1980s Chicago. Her command of the spoken voice gives her work both speed and pathos. She benefits, too, from her range of forms: rhymed sonnet, sestina, alphabet poem, long- and short-lined, and fragmentary free verse. This book will stand out among literary records of Katrina's devastation.” Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. . |
