Incendiary Art: Poems (Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award)
Patricia Smith's Incendiary Art: Poems is a poetry collection that looks sharply at historical violence and personal loss. It burns images of violence against Black bodies and the grief of mothers into the page through multiple forms and forceful language.
Work Information
A poetry collection that sears violence and loss into memory.
Published by Northwestern University Press / TriQuarterly in 2017, the collection includes searing sequences on Emmett Till and contemporary racial injustice. It holds lyricism and anger together while renewing the role of poetic witness.
Book Information
- Publisher
- Triquarterly Books
- Published
- 2017-02-15
- Pages
- 132 pages
- Language
- 英語
- Size
- 15.56 x 1.27 x 21.59 cm
- ISBN-13
- 9780810134331
- ISBN-10
- 0810134330
- Price
- 6969 JPY
- Category
- 洋書/Literature & Fiction/Poetry/American
Winner, NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Literary Work in the Poetry category Winner, 2018 Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award Winner, 2018 BCALA Best Poetry Award Winner, 2017 Los Angeles Times Book Prize Winner, Abel Meeropol Award for Social Justice Finalist, Neustadt International Prize for Literature Finalist, 2018 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry One of the most magnetic and esteemed poets in today&;s literary landscape, Patricia Smith fearlessly confronts the tyranny against the black male body and the tenacious grief of mothers in her compelling new collection, Incendiary Art . She writes an exhaustive lament for mothers of the "dark magicians," and revisits the devastating murder of Emmett Till. These dynamic sequences serve as a backdrop for present-day racial calamities and calls for resistance. Smith embraces elaborate and eloquent language&; " her gorgeous fallen son a horrid hidden / rot. Her tiny hand starts crushing roses&;one by one / by one she wrecks the casket&;s spray. It&;s how she / mourns&;a mother, still, despite the roar of thorns" &; as she sharpens her unerring focus on incidents of national mayhem and mourning. Smith envisions, reenvisions, and ultimately reinvents the role of witness with an incendiary fusion of forms, including prose poems, ghazals, sestinas, and sonnets. With poems impossible to turn away from, one of America&;s most electrifying writers reveals what is frightening, and what is revelatory, about history.
PATRICIA SMITH is a National Book Award finalist (2008) and the author of six critically acknowledged volumes of poetry. Her awards and honors include the 2014 Rebekah Johnson Bobbitt National Prize from the Library of Congress, the 2013 Lenore Marshall Poetry Prize from the Academy of American Poets, and a 2013 Phillis Wheatley Book Award. A formidable performer, Smith has read her work at venues all over the United States and around the world. She is a Cave Canem faculty member, an associate professor of English at CUNY/College of Staten Island, and a faculty member in the Sierra Nevada College M.F.A. program.
Reviews
-
Brilliant poetry
I was amazed at the seamless lyricism, metaphors and themes within this book. Patricia has a way of interweaving elements of the black experience in ways that provoke thought and evoke different sentiments (sorrow, anger, disbelief). The social themes coalesce with Emmett Till's murder so brilliantly. I fell in love with her poetry after watching her performance of "Skinhead" on YouTube. Definitely one of the most talented poets of our time!
-
Staggering and Heartbeaking Work
Patricia Smith is a national treasure. This breathtaking, heartbreaking, hope-making collection of poems shines light on the darkest aspects of the American gulf between the races. I thought no sequence of poems could break my heart more vividly, or open my eyes more widely, than Smith's "Shoulda Been Jimi Savannah," but I was wrong. Smith deserves all the accolades that are coming her way, and much, much more.
-
essential reading
Holy mother, this just burns and should burn everything down. One I want people to read right now. Plus, I love her ghazals, and everyone should be reading those too.
-
Paradoxically troubling and edifying.
Upon reading the first poem, I immediately turned to the last page for fear this collection might be traversed too soon.
-
Significant
Carefully crafted and beautifully written. A necessary read by a master poet that adds to the contemporary discourse.