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Teahouse of the Almighty
A National Poetry Series winner, chosen by Edward Sanders.
“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
“I was weeping for the beauty of poetry when I reached the end of the final poem.”—Edward Sanders, National Poetry Series judge
From Lollapalooza to Carnegie Hall, Patricia Smith has taken the stage as this nation’s premier performance poet. Featured in the film Slamnation and on the HBO series Def Poetry Jam, Smith is back with her first book in over a decade—a National Poetry Series winner weaving passionate, bluesy narratives into an empowering, finely tuned cele-bration of poetry’s liberating power.
“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
“I was weeping for the beauty of poetry when I reached the end of the final poem.”—Edward Sanders, National Poetry Series judge
From Lollapalooza to Carnegie Hall, Patricia Smith has taken the stage as this nation’s premier performance poet. Featured in the film Slamnation and on the HBO series Def Poetry Jam, Smith is back with her first book in over a decade—a National Poetry Series winner weaving passionate, bluesy narratives into an empowering, finely tuned cele-bration of poetry’s liberating power.
104 pages, Kindle Edition
First published September 1, 2006
13 people are currently reading
383 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 34 reviews
June 3, 2022
I really enjoyed the lyricism of these poems. Smith covered a wide variety of subjects with sharp turns-of-phrase that were a delight to read out loud.
January 2, 2016
This book. I took it off my folks' coffee table to, quite honestly, squeeze in my 2015 reading goal. Oh that skinny book I cracked open briefly last visit to my folks--that one with the Ella Fitzgerald poem, and poem for a son in prison--that will end my year quickly and well. Smith's signature and note to my mom in the front of the book--my mom can't remember where, but she must've shared her work with youth--belied the stature in my mind; I thought she must be local. Little did I know I was opening a poetry book of such substance and significance.
It was quick, but it was no filler, squeeze, or spot holder. And thankfully, it took a night, a morning and a night, so I got to end one year and begin another with a monumental dose of gorgeousness.
I cracked it open on the train and couldn't put it down when we arrived in Penn Station, inviting two older teen boys walking behind me to marvel at my ability to walk and read at the same time. Do you know that feeling of simultaneous gratitude and betrayal when a poem with a hopeful title winds up being the most lyrical, tragic thing you've ever read? Walked to Herald Square blessing the bright lights always keeping New York City in day mode, book still cracked open.
A poet dear to me recently critiqued my writing as not being poetry. It was a prose form, one my traditional poet friend was not accustomed to. Still, after reading this book, I think I better understand what poetry is, or is meant to be. Each word or turn of phrase like an object with its own memory, triggered to spew forth its own story.
Before I got to my destination, I read half the book, and on the walk in Brooklyn wrote my own image-punching poem inspired by Smith's taunting, lyrical, vivid imaginary.
Opened up a new day and new year with her last crumbs. She called her girl self a "little crumbsnatcher" in one poem; now, she reigns truly as crumb gifter, gifting morsels.
It was quick, but it was no filler, squeeze, or spot holder. And thankfully, it took a night, a morning and a night, so I got to end one year and begin another with a monumental dose of gorgeousness.
I cracked it open on the train and couldn't put it down when we arrived in Penn Station, inviting two older teen boys walking behind me to marvel at my ability to walk and read at the same time. Do you know that feeling of simultaneous gratitude and betrayal when a poem with a hopeful title winds up being the most lyrical, tragic thing you've ever read? Walked to Herald Square blessing the bright lights always keeping New York City in day mode, book still cracked open.
A poet dear to me recently critiqued my writing as not being poetry. It was a prose form, one my traditional poet friend was not accustomed to. Still, after reading this book, I think I better understand what poetry is, or is meant to be. Each word or turn of phrase like an object with its own memory, triggered to spew forth its own story.
Before I got to my destination, I read half the book, and on the walk in Brooklyn wrote my own image-punching poem inspired by Smith's taunting, lyrical, vivid imaginary.
Opened up a new day and new year with her last crumbs. She called her girl self a "little crumbsnatcher" in one poem; now, she reigns truly as crumb gifter, gifting morsels.
June 8, 2018
I loved this book and I loved all the poems in the book. If you have read any of Patricia Smith's work, this book is very similar to the rest of them. I highly recommend the book due to its deep meaning in each poem and the vocabulary you gain with each Patricia Smith book you read.
December 30, 2025
it's always hard to write a review for poetry collections. what I can say is this one sings. the poems are so lyrical and rhythmic. and what really resonated with me is how it inspired me to delve back into my own poetry after almost 2 years stepping back from it now
June 23, 2020
Patricia Smith is truly a wordsmith. Every word choice is deliberate, which seems like a no-brainer, but there's something about the composition that is like a perfectly folded origami paper. Everything is crisp, neat, pointed, even when the subjects are messy and ugly and passionate. Some of these poems hit like a gut punch. Some are sexy, some are painful, some make you smile. Truly a must-read poet.
October 12, 2021
What a moving collection- I felt every emotion after reading each page. Each poem was like reading a different story what a powerful body of work!
November 8, 2023
Patricia Smith has long been a favorite poet of mine, and this is another collection that demands attention. Engaging with the Blues and with Smith's gorgeous language, this collection practically sings. There are poems here which made me catch my breath, and which I had to read and re-read three or four times before I could make myself move on. And I'm sure I'll be coming back to it.
If you're new to Patricia Smith, this probably isn't the collection I'd recommend only because it is a little less accessible than some, and I'd say that there are others where every single poem included is an absolute stand-out that deserves to be read and re-read and shared. This one didn't quite live up to that absurdly high standard for me, but it is a fabulous collection that I loved living within.
Recommended.
If you're new to Patricia Smith, this probably isn't the collection I'd recommend only because it is a little less accessible than some, and I'd say that there are others where every single poem included is an absolute stand-out that deserves to be read and re-read and shared. This one didn't quite live up to that absurdly high standard for me, but it is a fabulous collection that I loved living within.
Recommended.
May 29, 2011
A prodigiously gifted poet--we were very fortunate to have her as featured poet at the Cumberland Regional Poetry Festival this month. Smith literally speaks in tongues, giving voices to murdered children, offstage blues singers, lechers, and silenced women of every stripe, using language so natural it's easy to forget you're reading crafted poems.
August 24, 2019
This book times me "home" in some very sad ways and some really wonderful ways too. The sot water cornbread poem was one of my favorites capturing a lovely daddy-daughter moment.
January 25, 2022
Emmett was all pelvis, theatrics
in lieu of heft and measure.
I threw Rich out of bed
and made him dance naked
in the hall. His spurt was ludicrous.
A.J.'s cocked to the left,
dots of Hai Karate flowering
his tests. And the bubbled one
with gut smothering the stub.
Florid dramas of the teeny weenie,
the entertainments of strut,
snug synthetic fibers, blustery spiels.
And now this little yellow pill
that grows even history huge.
And easily. Yes, and damn.
* * *
Flustered, without license or sanction, the women
clawed at whispered cotton and lopsided seam,
pushed irritants to their ankles, and stood upright
for whole seconds, just long enough for nipples
to pimple in soft wind. Behind them, a home that
once held his pens, his grimace acknowledging
a tumble phrase, earthquake that grew pliant
in him, and now twenty-eight quick asses framed
in the window. Much too rushed for structure, the
photographer did what he could to stun the slow
chaos - heads were twisted, eyes in blink, pubic
hair indistinct and shadowed. As sirens wailed,
the women hurried into their clothes - blouses
with nervy stink circles, skirts accordioned in haste.
Their names were nothing and they were rootless
in their wandering away. There was no sense
to their sacrifice, until the night came and the poet's
slow remembering hands returned for their soul.
* * *
He says I am gumpopper,
wondrous shoulders,
evil on the days when I bleed.
I say take hold of both my hands.
He speaks cool water on me,
nudges my mood with proverb.
I watch him undress, skin
unto another skin, and I turn
away to keep from craving that.
By the time his hands
touch my shoulders,
I am almost insane
with disappearing,
and the thunder.
* * *
A lyric unravels,
spins on dizzied axis,
one syllable slinks
and becomes several.
A stark shaft of light
illuminates a never-over evolution.
Each exhalation
excites and concludes
with a slight upturn
of phrase that compromises
the hip, roots fat legs,
lends such southern heave to torso.
Mysteries thrive in the belly
and in the miraculous
of her throating,
send two errant verbs
round 'bout themselves
and into the keys
of her spine again.
It is not for us to know
her trilling suddenly
murderous and cringe
beautiful, inbound.
Her legs gone.
A lack of this elegance
is the end of evolution.
Consider the soundless hole.
Over.
* * *
My job is to draw the pictures no one can voice,
to soothe and bellow toward the numbed heart,
to breathe in your chronicles, discuss them out
in lines weak enough for you to read and swallow.
My mouth is a jumble of canine teeth, I bite only
at the official whistle. My job is sexy leads for the
bones clattering in your closet, to sing you sated
each night with a forgettable soundtrack of paper
and ink. I am neat, easily folded, a sifter of truth
born to be burned. I count your dead, fathom their
stories, bless them with long, flexible histories
and their final names. There are no soft stanzas
in this city of curb sleep and murdered children.
We need soft words for hard things, this silk
brushing the inevitability of rock. Birth truth in
this way, just once. Craft the news and overcome
all that you ever were - a reason to turn the page.
* * *
many more than that many,
this hallelujah, this bruise Jesus
all over purpled ankle, more than
this scrubbed silver and next needle
this whole heart in an African hand
much more that these drum digits
this possible this wait a minute what
does this say this page 47, more than
this mad, this unlatched, this bandage
and gut swirling, what stiff number
was the blanket, scissored felt
and eye buttons, glitter elmer glued
to gone outlines, names too simple
to be so hard pronounced. more
than that, even more than conjured
million, this cock/tail, this twitch
and drool, this vomit, this legislation.
in lieu of heft and measure.
I threw Rich out of bed
and made him dance naked
in the hall. His spurt was ludicrous.
A.J.'s cocked to the left,
dots of Hai Karate flowering
his tests. And the bubbled one
with gut smothering the stub.
Florid dramas of the teeny weenie,
the entertainments of strut,
snug synthetic fibers, blustery spiels.
And now this little yellow pill
that grows even history huge.
And easily. Yes, and damn.
- walloping! magnifying of a guy's anatomy easily, subject line for a junk e-mail touting a "penile enhancer", pg. 9
* * *
Flustered, without license or sanction, the women
clawed at whispered cotton and lopsided seam,
pushed irritants to their ankles, and stood upright
for whole seconds, just long enough for nipples
to pimple in soft wind. Behind them, a home that
once held his pens, his grimace acknowledging
a tumble phrase, earthquake that grew pliant
in him, and now twenty-eight quick asses framed
in the window. Much too rushed for structure, the
photographer did what he could to stun the slow
chaos - heads were twisted, eyes in blink, pubic
hair indistinct and shadowed. As sirens wailed,
the women hurried into their clothes - blouses
with nervy stink circles, skirts accordioned in haste.
Their names were nothing and they were rootless
in their wandering away. There was no sense
to their sacrifice, until the night came and the poet's
slow remembering hands returned for their soul.
- Sacrifice, pg. 22
* * *
He says I am gumpopper,
wondrous shoulders,
evil on the days when I bleed.
I say take hold of both my hands.
He speaks cool water on me,
nudges my mood with proverb.
I watch him undress, skin
unto another skin, and I turn
away to keep from craving that.
By the time his hands
touch my shoulders,
I am almost insane
with disappearing,
and the thunder.
- Little Poetry, pg. 31
* * *
A lyric unravels,
spins on dizzied axis,
one syllable slinks
and becomes several.
A stark shaft of light
illuminates a never-over evolution.
Each exhalation
excites and concludes
with a slight upturn
of phrase that compromises
the hip, roots fat legs,
lends such southern heave to torso.
Mysteries thrive in the belly
and in the miraculous
of her throating,
send two errant verbs
round 'bout themselves
and into the keys
of her spine again.
It is not for us to know
her trilling suddenly
murderous and cringe
beautiful, inbound.
Her legs gone.
A lack of this elegance
is the end of evolution.
Consider the soundless hole.
Over.
- Elegantly Ending, for Ella Fitzgerald, pg. 40-41
* * *
My job is to draw the pictures no one can voice,
to soothe and bellow toward the numbed heart,
to breathe in your chronicles, discuss them out
in lines weak enough for you to read and swallow.
My mouth is a jumble of canine teeth, I bite only
at the official whistle. My job is sexy leads for the
bones clattering in your closet, to sing you sated
each night with a forgettable soundtrack of paper
and ink. I am neat, easily folded, a sifter of truth
born to be burned. I count your dead, fathom their
stories, bless them with long, flexible histories
and their final names. There are no soft stanzas
in this city of curb sleep and murdered children.
We need soft words for hard things, this silk
brushing the inevitability of rock. Birth truth in
this way, just once. Craft the news and overcome
all that you ever were - a reason to turn the page.
- Stop the Presses, pg. 65
* * *
many more than that many,
this hallelujah, this bruise Jesus
all over purpled ankle, more than
this scrubbed silver and next needle
this whole heart in an African hand
much more that these drum digits
this possible this wait a minute what
does this say this page 47, more than
this mad, this unlatched, this bandage
and gut swirling, what stiff number
was the blanket, scissored felt
and eye buttons, glitter elmer glued
to gone outlines, names too simple
to be so hard pronounced. more
than that, even more than conjured
million, this cock/tail, this twitch
and drool, this vomit, this legislation.
- Psyche!, pg. 76-77
February 7, 2019
BOY DIES, GIRLFRIEND GETS HIS HEART
Patterson, Calif. (AP)—A 15-year-old boy who learned that his girlfriend needed a heart transplant told his mother three weeks ago that he was going to die and that the girl should have his heart. Felipe Garza, who his brother said had seemed in perfect health, died Saturday after a blood vessel burst in his head. His family followed his wishes, and Felipe’s heart was transplanted Sunday into Donna Ashlock.
The deep things we know.
How systems grow restless
and damning in us,
stunning the machine.
And what we feel.
The head romances us,
coos anxious wooings,
makes us want to lie back
and listen to the failures,
the bones thinning,
fat clogging the paths.
Outside us, what?
Some opening waiting to scar over.
Some flower peeled open,
its drum growing slow.
And, suddenly, the least we can do is us.
Patterson, Calif. (AP)—A 17-year-old girl, who three years ago received the heart of a
boyfriend who died, needs a new heart because her body is rejecting the transplanted organ. Doctors are looking for a suitable heart for Donna Ashlock, who has been living with the heart of Felipe Garza since Jan. 4, 1986. Doctors learned last month that the Garza heart has been permanently damaged by Donna’s body’s repeated attempts to reject it.
I want this earth out of me,
this conjured world, this wire,
this battery, this button.
I would rather the suddening stoplight,
the dawned silence.
Beat it backwards, shoot it through
with slivers of glass, chop it from its walls.
Arise it beyond me, make it arc
over my dead head like a heaven.
Imagine the given thing being all you are.
Imagine a machine’s steel tear.
Know how I know this cannot be my heart.
It loves me too much.
Patterson, Calif. (AP)—Donna Ashlock, the 17-year-old girl whose body rejected the transplanted heart of a boyfriend, died Tuesday while waiting for a new heart.
Heaven is a room without air,
tinier than you would expect.
Their harbors summarily discarded,
souls are smashed upon souls,
writhing, lit neon with overwhelms of holy.
Here names, crimes, and choices
are forgotten. There is only one door,
and the harried souls hurtle through,
bargain for space, pulse gleefully.
The fickle, traitorous heart is a need
no one misses. In heaven,
they keep one beating
in a cage, purely for show.
Patterson, Calif. (AP)—A 15-year-old boy who learned that his girlfriend needed a heart transplant told his mother three weeks ago that he was going to die and that the girl should have his heart. Felipe Garza, who his brother said had seemed in perfect health, died Saturday after a blood vessel burst in his head. His family followed his wishes, and Felipe’s heart was transplanted Sunday into Donna Ashlock.
The deep things we know.
How systems grow restless
and damning in us,
stunning the machine.
And what we feel.
The head romances us,
coos anxious wooings,
makes us want to lie back
and listen to the failures,
the bones thinning,
fat clogging the paths.
Outside us, what?
Some opening waiting to scar over.
Some flower peeled open,
its drum growing slow.
And, suddenly, the least we can do is us.
Patterson, Calif. (AP)—A 17-year-old girl, who three years ago received the heart of a
boyfriend who died, needs a new heart because her body is rejecting the transplanted organ. Doctors are looking for a suitable heart for Donna Ashlock, who has been living with the heart of Felipe Garza since Jan. 4, 1986. Doctors learned last month that the Garza heart has been permanently damaged by Donna’s body’s repeated attempts to reject it.
I want this earth out of me,
this conjured world, this wire,
this battery, this button.
I would rather the suddening stoplight,
the dawned silence.
Beat it backwards, shoot it through
with slivers of glass, chop it from its walls.
Arise it beyond me, make it arc
over my dead head like a heaven.
Imagine the given thing being all you are.
Imagine a machine’s steel tear.
Know how I know this cannot be my heart.
It loves me too much.
Patterson, Calif. (AP)—Donna Ashlock, the 17-year-old girl whose body rejected the transplanted heart of a boyfriend, died Tuesday while waiting for a new heart.
Heaven is a room without air,
tinier than you would expect.
Their harbors summarily discarded,
souls are smashed upon souls,
writhing, lit neon with overwhelms of holy.
Here names, crimes, and choices
are forgotten. There is only one door,
and the harried souls hurtle through,
bargain for space, pulse gleefully.
The fickle, traitorous heart is a need
no one misses. In heaven,
they keep one beating
in a cage, purely for show.
June 27, 2020
This collection was absolutely stunning. Patricia Smith has a way of using words that is so musical and descriptive I was sucked into every poem completely. Such incredible writing about love in all its various guises. Every poem is tangible and a story that stands alone.
I would like to highlight a TRIGGER WARNING because a few of the poems are about violence and two of them in particular made me sick to my stomach. They were impactful and incredibly written, but I had to stop reading after "Creatively Loved" for a while because it made me feel so sick. It's about the violent death of a child and I would warn anyone who doesn't think they could handle really being shoved headfirst into that emotionally and physically, you should skip over that poem. It is still haunting me, and I had been falling in love with the collection before that poem but really had my guard up after. I also wish I hadn't googled and read about the true story it was based on, so please go into that poem with great caution or just skip it.
The other poem I want to warn about is Her Other Name, which is another poem based on true events which are disgusting and horrible and haunting. There is rape and abuse and violent disfiguration of a child detailed, so go into that poem with great caution as well or skip over it. Honestly I think without those two poems I would have loved the collection more, and I think they are meant to unsettle you, but it did hit far beyond unsettling for me.
I would like to highlight a TRIGGER WARNING because a few of the poems are about violence and two of them in particular made me sick to my stomach. They were impactful and incredibly written, but I had to stop reading after "Creatively Loved" for a while because it made me feel so sick. It's about the violent death of a child and I would warn anyone who doesn't think they could handle really being shoved headfirst into that emotionally and physically, you should skip over that poem. It is still haunting me, and I had been falling in love with the collection before that poem but really had my guard up after. I also wish I hadn't googled and read about the true story it was based on, so please go into that poem with great caution or just skip it.
The other poem I want to warn about is Her Other Name, which is another poem based on true events which are disgusting and horrible and haunting. There is rape and abuse and violent disfiguration of a child detailed, so go into that poem with great caution as well or skip over it. Honestly I think without those two poems I would have loved the collection more, and I think they are meant to unsettle you, but it did hit far beyond unsettling for me.
March 22, 2024
I love poetry because it makes you actually feel what it would be like to be a different person. What are the sensations they feel in their body? What are the words that repeatedly run through their minds? I like that even if a poem is jarring or unpleasant or unknowable to you, it still holds value because it made you experience something new. That’s how I felt about this collection of poems. They were so varied and all of them captivated me in different ways.
My favorites:
The End of a Marriage
My Million Fathers, Still Here Past
Hallelujah With Your Name
Scribe
Dream Dead Daddy Walking
When The Burning Begins
My favorites:
The End of a Marriage
My Million Fathers, Still Here Past
Hallelujah With Your Name
Scribe
Dream Dead Daddy Walking
When The Burning Begins
July 3, 2020
Smith's poems in this collection are sprawling, with expansive lines and a sense of driving rhythm and melody that keep you rapidly moving through the clever turns of phrase and surprising images. These are poems whose music beg to be given life by the mouth. Smith's grasp of image is stunning, and more so when her sense of humor and use of the grotesque enter those images (which is often). There's adventure here, an explosion of poetic form and linguistic sound, and a feeling of joy and glorying in all the facets that life has to offer us as human beings.
Read
October 18, 2019811.54 S6563t 2006
April 28, 2019
But you have poetry, you say.
And if you can tell me what poetry is,
where the line is drawn
between the beauty and the breathing
of breath into something to make it beautiful,
I will claim poetry as my own.
patricia smith is really out here making me experience every single emotion at the same time
January 21, 2010
I love Patricia Smith's poetry. Her words are jazz even when I don't understand. These are heart wrenching poems, like each her three other books. Each one I bow to.
The first poem in the book, "Building Nicole's Mama," which I witnessed her perform in a slam last year in Seattle, should bring tears to anyone's eyes. "A teacher tells me this is the first time Nicole/has admitted that her mother is gone,/murdered by slim silver needles and a stranger/her skeleton through for Nicole to see./And now this child with rusty knees/and mismatched shoes sees poetry as her scream/and asks me for the words to build her mother again./Replacing the voice./Stitching on the lost flesh." She helps us all remember why we write, why writing is important, the power of our words.
The first poem in the book, "Building Nicole's Mama," which I witnessed her perform in a slam last year in Seattle, should bring tears to anyone's eyes. "A teacher tells me this is the first time Nicole/has admitted that her mother is gone,/murdered by slim silver needles and a stranger/her skeleton through for Nicole to see./And now this child with rusty knees/and mismatched shoes sees poetry as her scream/and asks me for the words to build her mother again./Replacing the voice./Stitching on the lost flesh." She helps us all remember why we write, why writing is important, the power of our words.
March 1, 2009
Not pretentious yet literary. A combination of the page and the stage, using conventions and breaking them. The poem about her son coming back from jail destroyed me in the best way. I can only remember not rereading maybe two or three poems. The others I came back too constantly. Which is amazing to consider I rarely read a book twice, as I usually get what I need to get and remember it all. But when I come back it means memory doesn't suffice, I gotta get my fix and retread that path.
She's one of those poets baby.
She's one of those poets baby.
December 1, 2016
This is a slim volume of poetry- 48 poems, 91 pages- but it explodes in your head like a deployed airbag: loud and fast, leaving little little hurts behind that somehow let you know you are still alive. It hits you like a kick in the gut that makes you fight for breath and smile at the same time. I know, intellectually, that there are people who will not like this book or this poet but emotionally I still want to stand on the corner and hand a copy to everyone that walks past.
July 12, 2010
A very moving collection of poetry. Smith is visual and visceral. It is difficult to imagine reading some of the performance poets I've heard in the past, but when I read Patricia Smith, I can actually hear her voice in every line. I'm a positive person, so reading things that are very dark can be hard for me. Even the works that were disturbing in their subject matter are so beautiful that I found myself moved, and better for having read them.
July 16, 2014
I first heard Patricia Smith on Def Poetry Jam. When it came on at 1 in the morning on HBO. She wrote a poem about being a white supremacist. I was amazed. I could see the bald head, the angry look.
This book is no less amazing. In particular, Related to the Buttercup, Blooms in Spring , Building Nicole's Mama and When the Burning Begins are prime examples of why she is a huge name in poetry.
If you haven't read or seen her, what are you waiting for?
This book is no less amazing. In particular, Related to the Buttercup, Blooms in Spring , Building Nicole's Mama and When the Burning Begins are prime examples of why she is a huge name in poetry.
If you haven't read or seen her, what are you waiting for?
August 9, 2016
One of those books of poems where I love the content but am not a big stylistic fan, necessarily. Definitely Smith's poems are ones better heard than read. There a couple poems in here that really knocked me out of the park, though, and I think the celebration of blackness will really appeal to people who it's meant for.
Want to read
April 24, 2010Patricia Smith is an amazing poet. In this book, she comes at Hurricane Katrina and New Orleans from the inside out, personifying both the city and the storm, and making both terrifyingly and brutally real.
October 12, 2015
Excellent.
Thanks Clem for the recommendation.
I loved the language, the rhythm, and the topics.
Favorite poems were:
Stop the Presses
Look at 'em
Women are Taught
Down 4 the Upstroke
When the Burning Begins
April 6, 2016
This is how poetry is meant to be! Alive, raw, vivid, sensual, gruesome, heartbreaking, playful...some difficult subjects but always written with such heart. She might have quickly become one of my favorites!
November 10, 2016
It's been awhile since I've read poetry, but Patricia Smith's work is just so well-written; you can tell she has experience as a spoken word poet. She nails the end of each poem with such grace and wistfulness.
March 9, 2009
Excellent craft and subject matter. Ranges from the personal to the political with everything in between.
And headcheese. Headcheese shows up in a poem. I love that.
And headcheese. Headcheese shows up in a poem. I love that.
March 10, 2009
I literally read this book for nearly a year straight.
September 13, 2010
Completely stunning. The way that she arcs, exhausts and turns language is brilliant. These poems brought me into their houses and would not let me leave.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 34 reviews