The Intentions of Thunder: New and Selected Poems

by Patricia Smith

FINALIST FOR THE PULITZER PRIZE FOR POETRY
WINNER OF THE NATIONAL BOOK AWARD
WINNER OF THE NAACP IMAGE AWARD FOR OUTSTANDING POETRY

“Patricia Smith is the greatest living poet. Every book is better than the last.” —The Guardian

“In The Intentions of Thunder, language itself becomes weather—charged, clarifying, and resounding, a form of resurrection and survival.” —National Book Award Judges’ Citation

A collection of the finest new and selected poems from one of the most groundbreaking voices in contemporary poetry, a “masterful performer and poet of voices too little heard” (Poetry Foundation).

The Intentions of Thunder gathers, for the first time, the essential work from across Patricia Smith’s decorated career. Here, Smith’s poems, affixed with her remarkable gift of insight, present a rapturous ode to life. With careful yet vaulting movement, these poems traverse the redeeming landscape of pain, confront the frightening revelations of history, and disclose the joyous possibilities of the future. The result is a profound testament to the necessity of poetry—all the careful witness, embodied experience, and bristling pleasure that it bestows.

Lyrical and sly, meditative and volcanic, Patricia Smith’s poems are testimonials of American experience, from the bus north to Chicago during the Great Migration to the funeral of Emmett Till, from the waiting rooms of Boston’s prisons to New Orleans’s Ninth Ward during Hurricane Katrina. Few poets have so fearlessly confronted our nation as it truly is, with all its dreams and nightmares.

Genres: Poetry, Nonfiction, Adult, Audiobook, African American, American History, Anthologies

352 pages, Kindle Edition

First published September 30, 2025

Reviews

[Carey · Rating 4 out of 5]

I’ve been reading this collection slowly over the past few weeks, really taking my time to savor it. Patricia Smith is one of my favorite poets and The Intentions of Thunder brings together some of Smith’s most iconic poems along with uncollected and new pieces. Therefore, it's a work that I wanted to sit with.

What I loved most was how this book not only traces Smith’s growth as a writer, but also serves as a moving reflection on the African American experience from its exploration of history and its legacies, present struggles, and future hopes. It read as both a personal and collective story, exploring themes of culture, memory, and resilience.

The uncollected poems were especially compelling and fit rather seamlessly with the rest of the collection. And that final section, written as Smith reflects on turning seventy, was a standout. It was a humorous and emotional reminder of the spectrum of human emotions around aging.

I often find that collections that span so many years of a poet’s work can sometimes feel scattered, but this one felt incredibly intentional. The selections from earlier books seemed carefully chosen, creating a sense of continuity and conversation between old and new poems. This was something that really stood out to me as organizational structures of such works are often impacting the reading experience in intentional or unintentional ways. Here, the structure of the book as a whole felt like it added to the intensity and depth of these poems.

Overall, this collection feels like both a celebration of Smith’s artistry and a meditation on the life and legacy that inform it. Reading this made me definitely want to go explore some of her earlier collections that I haven't already read in full - and reminded me again of why I continue to love her poetry!

Thank you to the publisher, Scribner, for an e-ARC via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. All thoughts and opinions shared in this review are my own!

[Pamela Jo Mason · Rating 5 out of 5]

Years ago, I bought a book with a CD (that ages me, right?). It’s called “The Spoken Word Revolution”. As I was reading Patricia Smith’s “The Intentions of Thunder” I distinctly remembered how I felt listening to that CD.

Patricia’s book is so emotional and hits straight to the heart. It’s lyrical, provocative, sometimes dark and tense; it is mindful and at times very sexy! 😉 Beautifully written 💕 I am glad I got a paperback copy because I have dog-eared, highlighted and underlined, and annotated until the pages started coming out … I love it!!!

Thank you to the author, Patricia Smith; Scribner, publishers and Goodreads for giving me the opportunity to read and review 😊 Thank you for the Advanced Readers Copy and trusting me with your words! 🥰

Disclaimer - I received this book as a Goodreads giveaway

[ritareadthat · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is a gift to us all. 🙏🏻😍

[John Caleb Grenn · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Intentions of Thunder

Patricia Smith

Finalist for the @nationalbookfoundation award for poetry. Thank you @scribnerbooks for sharing a copy with me.

Over the years, Smith has filled these 350 pages with pure Americana, from city streets to southern kitchens.

Smith writes these poems where she puts herself in other peoples heads and shoes:, daughters, fathers, racist skinheads, little Richard, Medusa. it goes on.

She invokes and plays a visceral music as she writes. You can hear these out loud in your head. Even better, you can read these aloud and hear the pointed, true, biting and angry musicality of them.

She loves to add personification to elements of nature—not many people can do this without a bit of kitsch, but there’s none of that here. It’s fiery, interesting.

As a collection spanning nearly forty years, you feel a sense of age, maturity, of finding not only a voice but a growing element of learning to be ok with using all the space she can find. to fill up a page with herself. It seems like with time her poetry gets longer, it revisits itself, elaborates upon and freshens and clarifies.

For Jesmyn Ward lovers, for folks who like poetry but have a hard time knowing what’s new and great, and for anyone wanting to read rich, Black, musical, American poetry, this is your book. It’s easily parked in my top 5 favorite books of poetry, ever.

No one has ever spoken to the exact feeling my soul has at ALL OF IT like @pswordwoman has in this book. I’m not the same after it.

[aubrey · Rating 3 out of 5]

very difficult to rate because a lot of the poems in here are staggeringly good. but then I do also feel that this "greatest hits" collection needed some stricter editing because some of the images and language is quite repetitive. for example, "peppered" is used repeatedly in various contexts and a lot of them overlap in a way that wasn't resonating with me personally.

an unapologetically black collection of poetry that powerfully vocalizes American black life. police brutality, the lack of care in FEMA's response to Katrina, the black joy in Motown, the beauty of the blues, the rage simmering just below the surface.

from unshuttered "31":

"I keep fury away from my face,/away from my shuddering fists, and keep it knotted/inside. just beneath my everyday. there no one will/smell it."

[A Dreaming Bibliophile · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thanks to NetGalley and Scribner for providing me with an eARC.

This was a great collection of poetry highlighting the daily and unfortunate struggles faced by Black people. Some of the poems made me stop and reread it again because the way it was written hit really hard. I couldn't relate to it directly from my personal experiences but I'm sure a lot of people can. The comparisons in some of the poems were done very well -- makes you wonder how you never saw this connection and thought about it this way before. This is a brilliant book written in verse and I would absolutely recommend this to anyone looking for one, especially an own voices book written by a BIPOC author.

[Gregory Duke]

I have tried to move through this for months. I am oddly uninspired. There is a certain obviousness. A musicality, yes, but everything begins to blur thematically and sonically. The Hurricane Katrina sequence proves the most idiosyncratic, but Smith's tendencies don't gel with my mind. C'est la vie. She's apparently received enough love elsewhere.

[Jessica Haider · Rating 5 out of 5]

4,5 stars!

[Katie B]

Review coming soon.

[Cass Evavold · Rating 5 out of 5]

WOW WOW WOW WOW WOW, THIS WAS GENUINELY A BEAUTIFUL, AND BEYOND MOVING PIECE THAT WOULD DEFINITELY WILL BE RECOMMENDING TO EVERY PERSON

[Nancy · Rating 5 out of 5]

by Patricia Smith (no photo)


Finish date: 25.01.2026
Genre: poetry
Rating: A+++++++++++++++++++++
#National Book Award 2025 Poetry


Good News: This collection is a clear-eyed chronicle which shows us how issues of power, violence, race and gender are played out on a daily basis.

Good News: Patricia Smith is not only a poet, she is a witness:….never forget….never become indifferent (read the poems about the murder of Emmet Till through the eyes of his mother…powerful) Some poems are rooted in lived experience (youth, growing up, hurricane Katrina, reports of black males and their abuse of women)

Good News: Strong point: Writing...her humour, her lip and nerve. She never sugarcoats. (Poem: "Biting Back" about being a mother of teen-age son: “When squeezed I spit money”),

Good News: Strong point: defining the world she sees and letting the rest of us in on what things look like now.

Good News: Strong point: a journalist’s eye for detail…and a novelist’s ear for language.

Personal: Strong point: Reading very slowly...some poems take my breath away...and some were too upsetting to finish reading (black fathers killing their toddler as revenge on their x-wife). I'll try to read these 2-3 poems later when I feel mentally prepared for them. The book took me a month to read...a few poems at a time. Some books are like people....they turn up in your life when you need them. This is my book. While the many in the USA are trying to fathom what is going on this month in Minneapolis Minnesota, I found THE line in Ms. Smith's poem "Scars Poetica" (pg 332) that sums up all the tweets, podcasts, headlines, Insta videos:
"We kill without blinking, loathe without thought."

[Audrey · Rating 4 out of 5]

Whether describing a childhood in Chicago, her love for her Daddy and frustration with her Mom, or the Tulsa Riot, September 11, Hurricane Katrina, or the Great Migration, the words flow, sizzle, and cut. A beautiful indictment. A lament of the rage and hatred which sucks our country dry of promise.

[Ally Ang · Rating 5 out of 5]

Rigorous and devastating and rich and deeply rewarding. The formalist of her generation. I feel lucky to be on this earth at the same time as Patricia Smith.

[Michelle | musingsbymichelle · Rating 5 out of 5]

Calling this now: one of my top reads this year.

[Renée · Rating 5 out of 5]

Anemone. I feel so seen. Yes for the way it sounds.

All of this was profond. Deeply lyrical, hard hitting and creatively woven.

[AK · Rating 4 out of 5]

I had the privilege of hearing the poet read an excerpt of this work at the National Book Awards and it made me cry like a baby so I had to purchase the full book. Her words are so moving!

[Rhiley Jade · Rating 3 out of 5]

Thank you to NetGalley and Scribner for the E-ARC! This E-ARC was sent to me in exchange for an honest review.

A wise and thoughtful look into being black in America from the author's youth to their current age. Some poems followed their struggle with motherhood and other's showed the perspective of prominent figures that died in the name of "justice". It was well put together and tore at my heart. I recommend if you're looking for a collection to get into political poetry!

[Dree · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love Patricia Smith's poetry, but I am not a fan of anthologies like this. I loved Unshuttered, but the selections here did not flow as well as the book itself. Also since these collected works span decades, her writing style obviously changes and grows with each collection. I am not enough of a critic to be able to follow those changes. I prefer works that flow.

I thought the selections from Blood Dazzler were excellent, and I now intend to read that collection.

[Audrey · Rating 4 out of 5]

At best, I dabble in poetry. But I picked up this collection, with the intention of just reading a poem or two, to get a feel for it. I immediately got sucked into one section and couldn't put it down. Patricia Smith's poetry just speaks to me. These poems are easy to read, but harder to digest. The topics range from police murdering Black people to growing up to Motown. These are powerful and also, at times, really funny. I suspect I will be dipping into this collection for the foreseeable future.

ETA: Staff Pick 10/25

[Patricia N. McLaughlin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Five-star fabulous! This compilation of Smith’s new and selected poems is a work of consummate genius—a masterpiece of the first order. Smith is unmatched in her ability to illuminate the shadow aspects of American culture so that they can be seen, articulated, healed, and eventually purged from our collective consciousness. Smith specializes in probing America’s deepest emotional wounds, psychological traumas, and hidden struggles, forcing us to acknowledge, expose, and bring them into the light, thereby transforming pain into wisdom and right action—naps unleashed! Smith definitely makes the singing matter, and her words have grown to gospel in our hands.


“And then—it could have been
most anything, so many things can push
‘upstanding’ men much closer to the monsters that
they are—a numbing shove, a rifle wrenched
away, the flinging of a barb that names
a man much less than what he is, the gall
of those who will not lower their eyes of step
aside, so many things can make a man
decide in blood, to answer questions no
one’s asked with every form of fire.”
—from “The Storefronts Wore Their Names,” pp. 316-17

“See how we push on as enigma, the
free out loud, the audaciously unleashed, how slyly we can scan the sky—
all that were voltage and scatters of furious star—to realize that we
have been gifted an ancient grace.”
—from “The Stuff of Astounding,” p. 321

“I mourn the many poems that I failed
to write, and then the poems that I failed—
the poems I assumed would shove a life
back into life, unlatch a cage or turn
a thousand thirsty bullets back around,
revive a fallen daddy, shrink a war,
unreeling lines I thought could heal a thing,
slam shut a thing, reverse a thing or teach
an Annie Pearl to love her reckless child.
I grieve the lawless verses that fought back
and silenced me because I lacked the spine
required to know the tale they told was mine.
I trusted myself blind. I really thought
the words would grow to gospel in my hands.”
—from “70,” pp. 330-31


Favorite Poems:
LIFE ACCORDING TO MOTOWN (1991)
“What It’s Like to Be a Black Girl (For Those of You Aren’t)”
“Medusa”

BIG TOWNS, BIG TALK (1992)
“Annie Pearl Smith Discovers Moonlight”
“The Architect”

CLOSE TO DEATH (1993)
“Undertaker”

TEAHOUSE OF THE ALMIGHTY (2006)
“Building Nicole’s Mama”
“Listening at the Door”
“My Millions Fathers, Still Here Past”
“Map Rappin’”
“Scribe”
“Dream Dead Daddy Walking”
“Running for Aretha”
“When the Burning Begins”

BLOOD DAZZLER (2008)
“11 a.m., Wednesday, August 24, 2005”
“Man on the TV Say”
“What to Tweak”
“Ethel’s Sestina”
“34” (OMG)
“Siblings”

UNCOLLECTED (1990-2010)
“To the Woman, Not Trying to Fly, Who Fell with Her Legs Closed, Arms Pressed Against the Front of Her Body, While Primly Clutching Her Purse”
“Man, Roll Down the Window”
“Second Time Trying to Say Where My Son Was”

SHOULDA BEEN JIMI SAVANNAH (2012)
“How Mamas Begin Sometimes”
“Still Life with Toothpick”
“Keep Saying Heaven and It Will”
“Annie Pearl, Upward”
“Shoulda Been Jimi Savannah”
“An All-Purpose Product”
“13 Ways of Looking at 13”
“Thief of Tongues”
“Motown Crown”

INCENDIARY ART (2017)
“That Chile Emmett in That Casket”
“Emmett Till: Choose Your Own Adventure [196]”
“Incendiary Art: Los Angeles, 1992”
“Incendiary Art: Ferguson, 2014”
“The Five Stages of Drowning”
“When Black Men Drown Their Daughters”
“Blurred Quotient and Theory”
“Sagas of the Accidental Saint” !!!

UNSHUTTERED (2023)
1
4
31
42
“Unshuttered”

UNCOLLECTED (2010-2024)
“Double Shovel on a Line from MLK’s ‘Letter from a Birmingham Jail’”
“How to Find a Missing Black Woman”
“Naps Unleashed”
“Pandemics”
“The Price of the End of It”
“Salutations in Search Of”
“The Storefronts Wore Their Names”
“The Stuff of Astounding”
“To Little Black Girls, Risking Flower”

70
“70”
“Acknowledging”

[Erica Naone · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an awe inspiring collection. I have never read this poet’s work before though it was clear from the first page that she is groundbreaking and has inspired many other poets I love. It is amazing to get a sense of the breadth of her career and virtuosic talent. She is raw, honest, and formally impeccable anytime she wants to be.

There are multiple displays of crowns of sonnets that are dripping with skill and power - like the baddest guitar solo you’ve ever heard. I love the Motown crown but there are others just as amazing.

Selections from Blood dazzler, a sequence of poems about Hurricane Katrina, were particularly stunning.

But I also loved (and was left breathless by) the loss and rage in incendiary art and the flights of fancy about photographs in unshuttered. This book does not let you off easy anywhere. You will confront racism writ large and small and death and injustice and the pains of being a woman and a mother, and the pain of having a mother.

I was especially moved by the poems about the poet’s mother, which form a sequence of their own within the book, and about her son, which will be all too familiar to anyone who has visited a loved one in jail.

I feel like I lived a lifetime reading this. I feel like I should have read it three more times. Not enough can be said about the ground covered here.

[Courtney LeBlanc · Rating 4 out of 5]

A collection of new and selected poems by poetry-powerhouse, Patricia Smith.

from To the Woman, Not Trying to Fly, Who Fell with Her Legs Closed, Arms Pressed Against the Front of Her Body, While Primly Clutching Her Purse (September 11, 2001): "For poets, these are impossible days. / We have at our disposal every letter of every syllable / of every word every written or spoken in any language, / but when we attempted to conjure fly / we so often fall."

from Second Time Trying to Say Where My Son Was: "Looking down / the long, sorrowful row, I see that expectant hush repeated, / repeated. All those mothers wanting desperately to be there // but wishing they hadn't come. If only we'd stayed home, / letting the phone ring and ring and not picking up. We could / just keep staring from our own cells into the next dawn, / loving the disappeared, and waiting for our sons to rise."

from When Black Men Drown Their Daughters: "When black men drown, their daughters are fascinated with / the politics of water, how gorgeously a surface breaks / to receive, how it weeps so sanely shut."

[Alexandra Dav · Rating 4 out of 5]

M-au atras titlul și coperta, dar am rămas pentru poezii. A fost o lectură neașteptat de plăcută, deși a fost și răvășitoare în egală măsură.

Autoarea abordează o multitudine de teme și subiecte, însă o face într-un mod care se simte natural. N-am simțit nicio clipă că aș fi vrut o altă ordine pentru textele sale.
De asemenea, reușește să trezească o mulțime de emoții. Dacă uneori îmi fura un zâmbet datorită gândurilor superb scrise, alteori mă înfuriau tragediile descrise.
Mi-a deschis ochii și cu privire la traiul unor categorii de oameni, ceea ce mare lucru. Aveam impresia că și eu trăim cele povestite.
Am colorat și o mulțime de versuri. Cu siguranță voi mai citi și altceva scris de autoare. Stilul său e extrem de plăcut și de puternic în același timp.
Am scăzut o steluță pentru că pur și simplu n-am înțeles unele poezii, care ajungeau inevitabil să fie citite mult mai greu decât celelalte. De asemenea, aș zice că e puțin cam lung volumul.

E abia primul titlu citit de la autoare, dar cu siguranță nu va fi și ultimul.

[Robert Yokoyama · Rating 5 out of 5]

These poems are fun thought provoking and challenging. My favorite poem is "Motown Crown". This poem honors the music of Motown singers like Smokey Robinson and Diana Ross. I also love the poems dedicated to Little Richard and John Lee Hooker. These poems introduce me to classic soul and blues music respectively. Smith does not shy away from heavier subjects in her poems. I love the poem dedicated to the lynching of Emmet Till. She follows a similar theme by including poems about the epidemic of gun violence. These poems are sad, but they represent a reality of how dangerous our country has become.

I enjoy the challenge of understanding the structure of two specific kinds of poems in this book. They are the sestina poem and the tanka poem. The sestina poem has 39 lines with repeating words. The tanka is a Japanese poem with a specific number of syllables. I love learning about the different structure of poems, and I will try to write my own sestina and tanka by studying the examples in this book.

[Christina · Rating 5 out of 5]

A few years ago, I decided to incorporate poetry into my reading rotation. I knew next to nothing about poetry other than the fact that I had owned a collection of Margaret Atwood poems back when I was in high school. Starting out as a newbie, and not really knowing who was considered a master of the form, I just read what was popular, which meant stuff produced by TikTokers which I guess was nice, but also sounded very much like the ramblings of a 16 year old girl in her diary. I've grown more discerning as my knowledge has increased, which means I can tell anyone about the masterpiece that is Patricia Smith's The Intentions of Thunder. This collection serves double duty, being both a poetry collection and a memoir of Smith's life, her parents, her son, and eventually her entire community and history. It's heavy stuff but the emotion is just so present, so incredible. I also learned a great deal from it. Highly recommend, especially if poetry has been hard for you to follow along with in the past. Once you lock in to Smith's words, you're not going anywhere.

[Amelia.S · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Intentions of Thunder by Patricia Smith is a masterful celebration of voice, emotion, and lived experience. This collection, spanning new and selected poems, showcases Smith’s extraordinary ability to capture the rawness of history, the intimacy of personal struggle, and the expansive possibilities of the future. Each poem resonates with precision and power, blending lyrical beauty with incisive social insight.

What stands out is Smith’s unparalleled command of rhythm, voice, and perspective. She moves effortlessly between meditative reflection and volcanic intensity, allowing readers to feel the pulse of human experience in its most honest and transformative form. The Intentions of Thunder is both a testament to the necessity of poetry and a radiant affirmation of Smith’s essential voice in contemporary literature.

[Christa · Rating 5 out of 5]

"We will not be beholding or silent as we're gifted a sliver of the America we built-because we own the
stink and hallelujah of it, its burden and snarl, its bodacious black and otherwise". Hands down, favorite moment of this book.

Best poetry book I've read in a long, long time. This is something you have to digest over days, maybe even weeks. Not just because it can be heavy, but because each poem is battling something so different.

There were a few poems I didn't quite get as the language didn't quite resonate for me. And I am sucker for a short poem (this book is not populated with those lol), but I think the experience as a whole really outweighs those things. Patricia has been a favorite of mine since I was in high school and will continue to be. Her poems are relevant and challenging, while also being accessible and a great entrance point for new poetry readers. 5/5

[Leah Rachel von Essen · Rating 4 out of 5]

In 2024, I got to watch Patricia Smith receive the Fuller Award from the Chicago Literary Hall of Fame after being part of the committee for that year's honor. After an introduction from avery r. young, poets Jamila Woods and Niveah Glover performed Smith's poetry, and Marc Smith talked about the origins of the poetry slam. The house was full of stars, but when Patricia Smith performed a poem written specifically for the event, a poem about her poetry career and all it's meant to her, the entire room sat rapt and electric. Because even surrounded by the best of the best, Patricia Smith was something different.

That difference is clear throughout this gorgeous collection that brings together selections from across her illustrious career. From her spiky, rebellious, sexy work, to her meditations on being a mother of a son locked in the web of the incarceration complex, to her collection of poems about the disaster and devastation of hurricane Katrina, Smith's poetry explodes off the page. You can tell this is verse meant to be spoken aloud, and it's Smith's gift that her voice comes straight off the page for you. Each section is introduced with a poetic paragraph, Smith setting the scene and also looking back at that stage of her career, what she tried to do, and how it was received. Just a wonderful read.

Content warnings for racism, death, grief, misogynoir.

[Marilyn]

On 31 March 2026, I heard Patricia Smith speak about writing and poetry and then speak some of her poems. She was inspiring. I wanted to comment when she'd finished "How did you know that's exactly how my daughter, Alissa, and I felt in 2007 when we ran through the Louvre to see the "Mona Lisa"? She wrote this poem in 1991. She captured my feelings precisely. She's amazing.

And "Doin' the Louvre" is in this book. Yay!

In the front of the book, she lists her teachers: Gwendolyn Brooks 1917-2000), Wanda Coleman (1946-2013), Kwame Dawes (born 1962 in Ghana-Present), Annie Finch (1956-Present), Nikky Finney (1957-Present) , Terrance Hayes (1971-Present) , Marc Smith (1949-Present) , and "Fire and Rain" James Taylor 1948-Present).

Copy the pages listed on the postit note.

[Book.Ish.Shawn · Rating 5 out of 5]

I remember the first time I read a poem. It was in my elementary school library. Sitting at an oak table. My pretty , black southern librarian who was from Wheenston Saaalum ( Winston- Salem) North Carolina. She was the sweetest thing in my life at the time. Thick hair, thick lips and hips and a smile like sunshine and She did the thing that till this day. Makes my heart palpitations rise. Gave good things to read. Like an anthology of Black writers. I went into the summer before 7th grade in love, with Nikki Giovanni and poetry.

I'm not comparing poets here. I'm stating reading Patricia Smith for me is like Ego Tripping and the line that forever changed my world:
I am so perfect so divine so ethereal so surreal
I cannot be comprehended except by my permission.