Overview

An award-winning author presents a portrait of Black America in the nineteenth century Over the course of two decades, award-winning poet Patricia Smith has amassed a collection of rare nineteenth-century photographs of Black men, women, and children who, in these pages, regard us from the staggering distance of time. Unshuttered is a vessel for the voices of their incendiary and critical era. Smith’s searing stanzas and revelatory language imbue the subjects of the photos with dynamism and revived urgency while she explores how her own past of triumphs and losses is linked inextricably to their long-ago lives: We ache for fiction etched in black and white. Our eyes never touch. These tragic grays and bustles, mourners’ hats plopped high upon our tamed but tangled crowns, strain to disguise what yearning does with us. The poet’s unrivaled dexterity with dramatic monologue and poetic form reanimates these countenances, staring back from such yesterdays, and the stories they may have told. This is one of American literature’s finest wordsmiths doing what she does best—unreeling history to find its fierce and formidable lyric.

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9780810145634

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Reviews

Over the course of her career, Patricia Smith has a reputation for tackling complicated ideas, combining humor and tragedy, and bridging the gap between spoken word and lyrical prose. --Alex Dueben, The Millions A great stage performer and a former national slam poetry champion, Smith is also a performer on the page. --John S. O'Connor, Harvard Review Smith has a way of shining light into the darkness with a necessary and timely tongue of fire, challenging readers to open their eyes and face the truth. --Kathryn de Lancellotti, The Bind This is an affecting, lyrical work of empathy and imagination complemented by stunning images. --starred review, Publishers Weekly Patricia Smith is a masterful poet, performer, and pundit. And while her chosen field is the form and grace of language, her gift to the world that orbits the Black experience is truth. --Walter Mosley, author of The Awkward Black Man: Stories PRAISE FOR PATRICIA SMITH Her work is always timely, powerful, necessary, and at turns heartbreaking. --Natasha Trethewey, author of Memorial Drive: A Daughter's Memoir

Over the course of her career, Patricia Smith has a reputation for tackling complicated ideas, combining humor and tragedy, and bridging the gap between spoken word and lyrical prose. --Alex Dueben, The Millions A great stage performer and a former national slam poetry champion, Smith is also a performer on the page. --John S. O'Connor, Harvard Review Smith has a way of shining light into the darkness with a necessary and timely tongue of fire, challenging readers to open their eyes and face the truth. --Kathryn de Lancellotti, The Bind Patricia Smith is a masterful poet, performer, and pundit. And while her chosen field is the form and grace of language, her gift to the world that orbits the Black experience is truth. --Walter Mosley, author of The Awkward Black Man: Stories PRAISE FOR PATRICIA SMITH Her work is always timely, powerful, necessary, and at turns heartbreaking. --Natasha Trethewey, author of Memorial Drive: A Daughter's Memoir

Author Information

Patricia Smith is a National Book Award finalist (2008) and the author of eight critically acknowledged volumes of poetry, including Incendiary Art: Poems (TriQuarterly Books), winner of the 2018 Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award, the 2017 Los Angeles Times Book Prize, the 2018 NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Literary Work in the poetry category, and finalist for the 2018 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry. A Guggenheim Fellow, a Civitella Ranieri Fellow, a National Endowment for the Arts grant recipient, and a four‑time individual champion of the National Poetry Slam, Smith received the Poetry Foundation Ruth Lily Award for Lifetime Achievement in 2021. She is a professor of English at the College of Staten Island/CUNY, a faculty member with Voices of Our Nations Arts Foundation, and an instructor at the Vermont College of Fine Arts Postgraduate Writers’ Conference.

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