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Blood Dazzler
In minute-by-minute detail, Patricia Smith tracks Hurricane Katrina as it transforms into a full-blown mistress of destruction. From August 23, 2005, the day Tropical Depression Twelve developed, through August 28 when it became a Category Five storm with its “scarlet glare fixed on the trembling crescent,” to the heartbreaking aftermath, these poems evoke the horror that unfolded in New Orleans as America watched it on television.
Assuming the voices of flailing politicians, the dying, their survivors, and the voice of the hurricane itself, Smith follows the woefully inadequate relief effort and stands witness to families held captive on rooftops and in the Superdome. She gives voice to the thirty-four nursing home residents who drowned in St. Bernard Parish and recalls the day after their deaths when George W. Bush accompanied country singer Mark Willis on guitar:
The cowboy grins through the terrible din,
***
And in the Ninth, a choking woman wails
Look like this country done left us for dead.
An unforgettable reminder that poetry can still be “news that stays news,” Blood Dazzler is a necessary step toward national healing.
Patricia Smith is the author of four previous collections of poetry, including Teahouse of the Almighty, winner of the Hurston/Wright Legacy Award and the Paterson Poetry Prize. A record-setting, national poetry slam champion, she was featured in the film Slamnation, on the HBO series Def Poetry Jam, and is a frequent contributor to Harriet, the Poetry Foundation’s blog.
Assuming the voices of flailing politicians, the dying, their survivors, and the voice of the hurricane itself, Smith follows the woefully inadequate relief effort and stands witness to families held captive on rooftops and in the Superdome. She gives voice to the thirty-four nursing home residents who drowned in St. Bernard Parish and recalls the day after their deaths when George W. Bush accompanied country singer Mark Willis on guitar:
The cowboy grins through the terrible din,
***
And in the Ninth, a choking woman wails
Look like this country done left us for dead.
An unforgettable reminder that poetry can still be “news that stays news,” Blood Dazzler is a necessary step toward national healing.
Patricia Smith is the author of four previous collections of poetry, including Teahouse of the Almighty, winner of the Hurston/Wright Legacy Award and the Paterson Poetry Prize. A record-setting, national poetry slam champion, she was featured in the film Slamnation, on the HBO series Def Poetry Jam, and is a frequent contributor to Harriet, the Poetry Foundation’s blog.
77 pages, Paperback
First published September 1, 2008
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January 20, 2021
I remember Katrina vaguely at this point. I was living in Orlando at the time and the warnings were strong enough that Disney World closed for a day. The storm did not hit us but made its way to the gulf coast where it became a category five storm, battering and destroying everything in its wake. When all was said and done, New Orleans was under water, many of her inhabitants homeless. Katrina refugees became part of the 2005 vernacular, and over time literature and nonfiction accounts of the disaster have emerged. I am not one for reading about natural disasters; most freak me out but that I attribute to a runaway imagination. Always on the lookout to discover new authors, I found the work of Patricia Smith. In her Blood Dazzler, she paints a picture of Katrina’s destruction of New Orleans in poetic verse. Poetry, I can handle, even if my imagination will give me nightmares afterward.
Smith’s poems are shorts, most a page or less in length. She goes back and forth between discussing people’s pre and post evacuation plans, the role of voodoo and religion in peoples’ decisions to leave, the role of race in providing aid to the region, and telling the tale from Katrina’s point of view. The verses where Katrina announces how she will wreak havoc on the region are raw and innovative. One that stands out is Hurricane Betsy encouraging Katrina to call down, to not break the levees, and to let people be, the way she did. Then New Orleans could get on with its day to day living and not have to undergo a historic rebuilding. Such is wistful thinking on Betsy, and Smith’s, part. These were the least gruesome and thought provoking of the poems, proving that Mother Nature is miraculous, not scary. If only the other verses in the collection were as tame as this.
In one family’s haste to evacuate, they tie up their dog and leave. Being a pet owner, animal cruelty is on my absolute no list no matter the circumstances. Smith revisits this family’s decision from both the owner’s and dog’s point of view, and I could barely get through these as they were too upsetting and depressing for my liking. One of my cats was found in a flood and to this day he is afraid of storms. I always wonder what happened to the pets of all the families who fled these natural disasters. Sadly, too many perished and too many poems on this subject appeared in the collection. Animals weren’t the only ones to die. A man left his elderly mother in a wheelchair and told her to stay where she was so he could get help. Becoming dehydrated, the woman later died, the son not having a chance to say goodbye. Smith perhaps desired for readers to feel uncomfortable with her subject matter. She showed how little aid and help was available at first leading many to perish not because of the actual rain but because little help was available to those in need. I cringed at most of these.
Katrina was indeed a blood dazzler, a storm of storms. The centerpiece of the collection is a satire among the members of FEMA. The one member of the organization on the ground relayed his findings to the higher ups in Washington, making it apparent that he did not want to be involved in the mess that was the aftermath of the storm. I know from other reading that it took New Orleans natives to take charge and finally steer the city back in the right direction. FEMA chose not to provide enough help, but I will end my exploration of the satire with that. Smith and I may not share opinions but she conveyed her words so well that even I could show empathy to the situation. Like other cities after a disaster, New Orleans eventually rebuilt from the ground up.
Blood Dazzler is a poetry collection that I would have never chosen to read on my own. I can not say that goodreads itself lead me in its direction, but I needed a book written by an African American woman in the 2000s decade in order to compete a century challenge. Smith’s work popped up. She is a new author for me and writes powerful work. I am curious to read other works of hers, and hopefully the subject matter will not be as depressing as this. Even if it is, I know that the writing will be excellent, having discovered yet another outstanding author.
4+ stars
Smith’s poems are shorts, most a page or less in length. She goes back and forth between discussing people’s pre and post evacuation plans, the role of voodoo and religion in peoples’ decisions to leave, the role of race in providing aid to the region, and telling the tale from Katrina’s point of view. The verses where Katrina announces how she will wreak havoc on the region are raw and innovative. One that stands out is Hurricane Betsy encouraging Katrina to call down, to not break the levees, and to let people be, the way she did. Then New Orleans could get on with its day to day living and not have to undergo a historic rebuilding. Such is wistful thinking on Betsy, and Smith’s, part. These were the least gruesome and thought provoking of the poems, proving that Mother Nature is miraculous, not scary. If only the other verses in the collection were as tame as this.
In one family’s haste to evacuate, they tie up their dog and leave. Being a pet owner, animal cruelty is on my absolute no list no matter the circumstances. Smith revisits this family’s decision from both the owner’s and dog’s point of view, and I could barely get through these as they were too upsetting and depressing for my liking. One of my cats was found in a flood and to this day he is afraid of storms. I always wonder what happened to the pets of all the families who fled these natural disasters. Sadly, too many perished and too many poems on this subject appeared in the collection. Animals weren’t the only ones to die. A man left his elderly mother in a wheelchair and told her to stay where she was so he could get help. Becoming dehydrated, the woman later died, the son not having a chance to say goodbye. Smith perhaps desired for readers to feel uncomfortable with her subject matter. She showed how little aid and help was available at first leading many to perish not because of the actual rain but because little help was available to those in need. I cringed at most of these.
Katrina was indeed a blood dazzler, a storm of storms. The centerpiece of the collection is a satire among the members of FEMA. The one member of the organization on the ground relayed his findings to the higher ups in Washington, making it apparent that he did not want to be involved in the mess that was the aftermath of the storm. I know from other reading that it took New Orleans natives to take charge and finally steer the city back in the right direction. FEMA chose not to provide enough help, but I will end my exploration of the satire with that. Smith and I may not share opinions but she conveyed her words so well that even I could show empathy to the situation. Like other cities after a disaster, New Orleans eventually rebuilt from the ground up.
Blood Dazzler is a poetry collection that I would have never chosen to read on my own. I can not say that goodreads itself lead me in its direction, but I needed a book written by an African American woman in the 2000s decade in order to compete a century challenge. Smith’s work popped up. She is a new author for me and writes powerful work. I am curious to read other works of hers, and hopefully the subject matter will not be as depressing as this. Even if it is, I know that the writing will be excellent, having discovered yet another outstanding author.
4+ stars
May 30, 2020
Blood Dazzler articulates a Pastiche of what many would consider to be uncomfortable Truths. One of the most emotionally driven accounts of the 2005 Hurricane Katrina disaster, Smith’s 2008 collection exemplifies the power of the poetic historical Document to intervene on behalf of those whose stories have been dismantled and reconstructed for the purpose of legitimating the prejudices that inform racial stratification.
The poems work separately and collectively to implicate president Bush in the fallout and, more importantly, address the media’s complicity in the re-victimization of affected African American citizens.
Most importantly, even as Smith enumerates the profound and far reaching consequences of the government’s racially motivated defection, she troubles the notion of African American survivors as figures emblematic of victimhood.
To be clear, Smith writes not with knowing complicity in the increase of racial tensions in this country; her role here is simply as historian and poet. Her collection functions to document the *government’s* knowing complicity in the hundreds of African American deaths that followed the storm.
Central to understanding the function of this historical document is an understanding of the historian’s motives. During a 2015 interview with Joseph Ross, Smith discusses the emotional and intellectual center of the collection, explaining that “The Role of a storyteller, I think, the primary role is as of witness” (Smith). Moreover, says Smith, “Katrina was not just a regional story. It was a national story and it was a human story” (Smith). Like many Americans, Smith was astonished and horrified by the images of displaced and abandoned citizens: “All of a sudden, you’re seeing, up close and personal, what your country is capable of” (Smith). In an effort to “make the story make sense,” (Smith). She attempted to access the implicit meanings of these “mediated texts” (Sellno) through poetry. At the time, she felt a responsibility toward emergent generations of thinkers; when visiting high schools, she often found that most students were uninformed about Katrina and unaware of its aftermath. According to Smith, the poet functions largely to bridge the informational gap between the “truth” that is made accessible to students in the classroom and the truth which only a poet can articulate: “I think as long as we can tell these stories, we’re basically doing what the history books( the history books that go into schools) aren’t necessarily doing“ (Smith). Ultimately, she says, the onus is on the individual. More specifically, consumers of meaning must be prepared to grapple with and read below the multivalent language of “mediated texts” (Sellno); “…when you see those stories, it’s really up to you to say “now let’s go see what they’re not saying” (Smith). This is because “You’re always seeing somebody else’s truth. You’re always seeing what has been honed down into manageable soundbites” (Smith). Unfortunately, Smith says, our society is often unwilling to “take the time “to “[walk into] those stories and [see]whatever else is there” (Smith). In fact, she explains, “There are so many places in the world where people do get the news from what the poets tell [them]. [They] get the news from the country or the television, and then [they say[sic] “what really happened? Let’s listen to the poets” (Smith). Those who refuse to interrogate the complicated, often problematic narratives that come out of the media are essentially relinquishing their agency by allowing others to do their critical thinking for them: “we’re letting the news control us” (Smith). This, Smith asserts, is why The News cannot be Considered a Reliable Historical Document.
Ultimately, Smith’s collection accomplishes the difficult task of objectively and passionately documenting one of history’s most tragic and socio-politically complicated events.
“Patricia Smith on Hurricane Katrina and “Blood Dazzler.” YouTube, Uploaded by hocopolitso, 31 Oct, 2014, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U3_0j...
Sellno, Deanna D. The Rhetorical Power of Popular Culture: Considering “mediated texts”(Sellno) , Sage Publications,2010.
The poems work separately and collectively to implicate president Bush in the fallout and, more importantly, address the media’s complicity in the re-victimization of affected African American citizens.
Most importantly, even as Smith enumerates the profound and far reaching consequences of the government’s racially motivated defection, she troubles the notion of African American survivors as figures emblematic of victimhood.
To be clear, Smith writes not with knowing complicity in the increase of racial tensions in this country; her role here is simply as historian and poet. Her collection functions to document the *government’s* knowing complicity in the hundreds of African American deaths that followed the storm.
Central to understanding the function of this historical document is an understanding of the historian’s motives. During a 2015 interview with Joseph Ross, Smith discusses the emotional and intellectual center of the collection, explaining that “The Role of a storyteller, I think, the primary role is as of witness” (Smith). Moreover, says Smith, “Katrina was not just a regional story. It was a national story and it was a human story” (Smith). Like many Americans, Smith was astonished and horrified by the images of displaced and abandoned citizens: “All of a sudden, you’re seeing, up close and personal, what your country is capable of” (Smith). In an effort to “make the story make sense,” (Smith). She attempted to access the implicit meanings of these “mediated texts” (Sellno) through poetry. At the time, she felt a responsibility toward emergent generations of thinkers; when visiting high schools, she often found that most students were uninformed about Katrina and unaware of its aftermath. According to Smith, the poet functions largely to bridge the informational gap between the “truth” that is made accessible to students in the classroom and the truth which only a poet can articulate: “I think as long as we can tell these stories, we’re basically doing what the history books( the history books that go into schools) aren’t necessarily doing“ (Smith). Ultimately, she says, the onus is on the individual. More specifically, consumers of meaning must be prepared to grapple with and read below the multivalent language of “mediated texts” (Sellno); “…when you see those stories, it’s really up to you to say “now let’s go see what they’re not saying” (Smith). This is because “You’re always seeing somebody else’s truth. You’re always seeing what has been honed down into manageable soundbites” (Smith). Unfortunately, Smith says, our society is often unwilling to “take the time “to “[walk into] those stories and [see]whatever else is there” (Smith). In fact, she explains, “There are so many places in the world where people do get the news from what the poets tell [them]. [They] get the news from the country or the television, and then [they say[sic] “what really happened? Let’s listen to the poets” (Smith). Those who refuse to interrogate the complicated, often problematic narratives that come out of the media are essentially relinquishing their agency by allowing others to do their critical thinking for them: “we’re letting the news control us” (Smith). This, Smith asserts, is why The News cannot be Considered a Reliable Historical Document.
Ultimately, Smith’s collection accomplishes the difficult task of objectively and passionately documenting one of history’s most tragic and socio-politically complicated events.
“Patricia Smith on Hurricane Katrina and “Blood Dazzler.” YouTube, Uploaded by hocopolitso, 31 Oct, 2014, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U3_0j...
Sellno, Deanna D. The Rhetorical Power of Popular Culture: Considering “mediated texts”(Sellno) , Sage Publications,2010.
January 5, 2009
Right after the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, I heard an interview with Billy Collins on public radio. He was asked about the role of poetry in such a disaster and my memory is that he said something on the order that some disasters are just too big for poetry to handle.
One would think that the disaster that Katrina and the Bush Administration imposed upon New Orleans would be another such disaster but Patricia Smith has proven that poetry, at least in her hands, is equal to the task.
I think everyone in the United States should read this book.
It moves from rant to celebration, from satire to tragedy.
One would think that the disaster that Katrina and the Bush Administration imposed upon New Orleans would be another such disaster but Patricia Smith has proven that poetry, at least in her hands, is equal to the task.
I think everyone in the United States should read this book.
It moves from rant to celebration, from satire to tragedy.
February 13, 2021
Blood Dazzler by Patricia Smith is the most effective, most skillful, most gripping poetry collection I’ve read in years. I was absolutely floored.
What a way to begin my buddy read with @bootashasolit. For the month of February we’re reading 3 poetry collections by Black writers and this collection had us chatting for almost two hours yesterday.
Blood Dazzler is a remembrance of Hurricane Katrina and how it decimated New Orleans and took so many lives. How Katrina razed so many memories threaded into the walls of beloved homes, flushed in an instant. How Katrina affected Black communities the most, how racism reared its monstrous head and how the forced relocation and removal of Black folks from their communities was normalized and praised by white folks like Barbara Bush.
In moment by moment detail, Blood Dazzler intensifies alongside Hurricane Katrina, at first there are mild warnings and then its leave leave leave. But where do you leave to when you have nowhere else to go? No transportation to go? No money to go?
The poem “34” gives voices to the 34 nursing home residents who died inside that facility. Smith wrote this poem once she realized there were folks who didn’t want to hear about these sad circumstances, "They wanted distraction, they didn't want to focus on tragedy anymore. I thought it was important that such a human and deeply tragic moment in our lives not disappear."
Patricia Smith believed these lives, these events needed to be remembered. I believe the same. And I believe that once this title is brought to ones attention, it must be read.
CW for death, racism, natural disasters, sexual assault
What a way to begin my buddy read with @bootashasolit. For the month of February we’re reading 3 poetry collections by Black writers and this collection had us chatting for almost two hours yesterday.
Blood Dazzler is a remembrance of Hurricane Katrina and how it decimated New Orleans and took so many lives. How Katrina razed so many memories threaded into the walls of beloved homes, flushed in an instant. How Katrina affected Black communities the most, how racism reared its monstrous head and how the forced relocation and removal of Black folks from their communities was normalized and praised by white folks like Barbara Bush.
In moment by moment detail, Blood Dazzler intensifies alongside Hurricane Katrina, at first there are mild warnings and then its leave leave leave. But where do you leave to when you have nowhere else to go? No transportation to go? No money to go?
The poem “34” gives voices to the 34 nursing home residents who died inside that facility. Smith wrote this poem once she realized there were folks who didn’t want to hear about these sad circumstances, "They wanted distraction, they didn't want to focus on tragedy anymore. I thought it was important that such a human and deeply tragic moment in our lives not disappear."
Patricia Smith believed these lives, these events needed to be remembered. I believe the same. And I believe that once this title is brought to ones attention, it must be read.
CW for death, racism, natural disasters, sexual assault
January 11, 2009
In a world full of tragedy, it is easy to feel removed from it, to see it as a distant echo. Patricia Smith’s collection of poems, Blood Dazzler, breaks through this apathy to bring the full weight of Hurricane Katrina’s impact front and center. These poems track the storm from its origins to its eventual transformation into a Category 5 storm. However, Smith doesn’t shy away from the aftermath; she is in the muck of this storm from its very start and right on through to its heartbreaking aftermath.
This book is more than a marker for the dead. The people in this book don’t die; they live on well past the rotting of their bodies. I dare you to read Smith’s poems about Luther B, a dog left tied up during Katrina, without feeling goose bumps. Smith allows everyone the chance to speak past the images that still haunt us. She writes about the stories we don’t always see or experience: Ethel Freeman, a woman whose body was left to rot in her wheelchair; the thirty-four bodies of the men and women left to drown in St. Rita’s Nursing Home; and the nameless who talk about what it’s like to leave one’s life behind.
Smith paints Hurricane Katrina as the black sheep of hurricanes. “Siblings” is a witty alphabet poem that strolls through history’s hurricanes and talks about their characteristics. The poem ends with Katrina and how “none of them talked about Katrina/she was their odd sister/the blood dazzler.” As Hurricane Betsy says to Katrina, “No nuance. Got no whisper/in you, do you girl?/The idea was not/to stomp it flat, ‘trina,/all you had to do was kiss the land…Instead, you roared through like/a goddamned man, all biceps… .” The very hurricanes that threaten the land have a chance to speak, have a chance to swing their hips. The hurricanes become as much a part of this place as the people and the land itself. Smith leaves no rock unturned, no perspective untouched.
Smith destroys the idea that tragedy happens to those who are Other, to those who are far away echoes. This poet brings the effects of Katrina right up to the reader’s nose and blows the sweetest and most sour music towards our hearts. To read these poems and not be affected is impossible. You will be seared by the grit and spirit of these people, the landscape, and the true force of nature. The men and women of New Orleans do not lose their fire, or their humor. The rain falls and the people of this world continue to spin their memories and sing from their rooftops while they wait for help that may never come. These poems are a true force of nature.
Review by Lisa Bower
This book is more than a marker for the dead. The people in this book don’t die; they live on well past the rotting of their bodies. I dare you to read Smith’s poems about Luther B, a dog left tied up during Katrina, without feeling goose bumps. Smith allows everyone the chance to speak past the images that still haunt us. She writes about the stories we don’t always see or experience: Ethel Freeman, a woman whose body was left to rot in her wheelchair; the thirty-four bodies of the men and women left to drown in St. Rita’s Nursing Home; and the nameless who talk about what it’s like to leave one’s life behind.
Smith paints Hurricane Katrina as the black sheep of hurricanes. “Siblings” is a witty alphabet poem that strolls through history’s hurricanes and talks about their characteristics. The poem ends with Katrina and how “none of them talked about Katrina/she was their odd sister/the blood dazzler.” As Hurricane Betsy says to Katrina, “No nuance. Got no whisper/in you, do you girl?/The idea was not/to stomp it flat, ‘trina,/all you had to do was kiss the land…Instead, you roared through like/a goddamned man, all biceps… .” The very hurricanes that threaten the land have a chance to speak, have a chance to swing their hips. The hurricanes become as much a part of this place as the people and the land itself. Smith leaves no rock unturned, no perspective untouched.
Smith destroys the idea that tragedy happens to those who are Other, to those who are far away echoes. This poet brings the effects of Katrina right up to the reader’s nose and blows the sweetest and most sour music towards our hearts. To read these poems and not be affected is impossible. You will be seared by the grit and spirit of these people, the landscape, and the true force of nature. The men and women of New Orleans do not lose their fire, or their humor. The rain falls and the people of this world continue to spin their memories and sing from their rooftops while they wait for help that may never come. These poems are a true force of nature.
Review by Lisa Bower
April 25, 2024
i've wanted to read this collection for a while and i'm so happy i finally got around to it. these are POEMS!!! what a genius idea for a collection; i've never read a poetry collection this cohesive before. i genuinely learned so much more about hurricane katrina from this book. the poems about ethel freeman were so devastating. it would feel morally wrong to give this any less than 5 stars!
September 9, 2009
I heard Patricia Smith perform selections from "Blood Dazzler" at Sarah Lawrence last summer, and I'd wanted to read it ever since. She was amazing in person, a true spoken word diva. But "Blood Dazzler" has one crucial flaw: every poem in this collection has the same tone. Smith clearly writes with an agenda. Every poem is about unrelenting destruction, and there's a bitterness that is likely justified. What I couldn't get over is the fact that not a single poem engenders a sense of hope. I can easily agree that Katrina was an awful, awful tragedy, one which is still being mishandled in some ways, but that is not the total experience of Katrina, and that is where this collection flatlines. So many people donated their time, money, and effort to help rebuild after Katrina. Some volunteers left their lives behind and moved to New Orleans permanently. There is groundbreaking work occuring down there still, and I think Smith misses the mark because she does not include any of this. And Smith did not write this so soon after Katrina that she could have failed to realize some of that power, a movement which has become much more powerful than Katrina the hurricane ever was.
August 14, 2024
Sealey Challenge 2024: 13/31
This was such a heartbreakingly emotive poetry collection ruminating on the experiences of those who lived - and the many who did not - through Hurricane Katrina. I don't think I have the words to describe the devastation both of Katrina and the poems within Blood Dazzler as this collection taught me so much about what I only remember from a distance and in the aftermath of mass tragedy. I am infinitely grateful that this poetry collection exists and honestly wish that it could be required reading for those unaware of the ways the country failed Hurricane Katrina's victims.
This was such a heartbreakingly emotive poetry collection ruminating on the experiences of those who lived - and the many who did not - through Hurricane Katrina. I don't think I have the words to describe the devastation both of Katrina and the poems within Blood Dazzler as this collection taught me so much about what I only remember from a distance and in the aftermath of mass tragedy. I am infinitely grateful that this poetry collection exists and honestly wish that it could be required reading for those unaware of the ways the country failed Hurricane Katrina's victims.
February 18, 2017
Watched Spike Lee's documentary 'When the Levees Broke' parts 1 & 2 before reading this. Just powerful. Sadness for the way we have not changed and our inept government. Tears and sobbing for the lives lost and stories told and untold. Smith gives a voice to a few, but there are so many more that were lost.
December 31, 2025
I hadn't ever picked up a poetry collection before and, from my incredibly limited working knowledge of poetry, I thought this was great. Smith utilized different styles (types?) of poetry, piecing together a collection of works ranging from before, during, after, and beyond the horrors brought by Hurricane Katrina. I found Smith's anthropomorphizing and gendering of Katrina (and other hurricanes) to be thought-provoking. Smith interspersed sentences from news clips from this time to add weight to certain pieces in a really cool way, especially reflecting on the difference between national perception and on-the-ground realities. There was clear attention paid to the failures of FEMA and the Bush administration throughout this tragedy, done in an artful, interesting way.
My favorites:
MAN ON THE TV SAY; ONLY EVERYTHING I OWN; VOODOO II: MONEY; WHAT TO TWEAK; THE PRESIDENT FLIES OVER; THEIR SAVIOR WAS ME; VOODOO VII: DEVELOP PSYCHIC POWERS; BURIED; WHAT BETSY HAS TO SAY; SIBLINGS; VOODOO VIII: SPIRITUAL CLEANSING & BLESSING
My favorites:
MAN ON THE TV SAY; ONLY EVERYTHING I OWN; VOODOO II: MONEY; WHAT TO TWEAK; THE PRESIDENT FLIES OVER; THEIR SAVIOR WAS ME; VOODOO VII: DEVELOP PSYCHIC POWERS; BURIED; WHAT BETSY HAS TO SAY; SIBLINGS; VOODOO VIII: SPIRITUAL CLEANSING & BLESSING
September 7, 2020
This is my first poetry book by Patricia Smith, and oh wow, what a great place to start. Smith uses such vivid language. It’s almost too vivid, in some cases. I can imagine her sitting in front of her computer, her screen showcasing bloated bodies and scared people waving from rooftops as the water rises. Hurricane Katrina happened 15 years ago, and yet, reading this book made me feel like it was happening right now. I went through so many emotions while reading Blood Dazzler. I went through grief for those that we lost during this tragic event. I went through angry when I realized how elected officials really didn’t know how to handle this occurrence. I went through moments of hope, moments of sorrow, moments of loving a city that I’ve never been to. Smith is brilliant. Absolutely brilliant. I can’t wait to read more.
March 27, 2025
This collection was best when it was lowest—I LOVED some of the poems about Luther B and the pieces from the perspective of the drowned woman in the nursing home were heart-breaking.
So much of it felt forced and a little bit like stunt poetry though. There’s a difference between making the familiar strange and making the familiar fancy. Especially when that showy language really just feels decorative.
So much of it felt forced and a little bit like stunt poetry though. There’s a difference between making the familiar strange and making the familiar fancy. Especially when that showy language really just feels decorative.
December 20, 2024
I didn’t actually know the premise of this collection until I started it, but oh my gosh that blew me away. Smith is a brilliant poet who is able to weave fact and the surreal and heartache and God all into a singular force of a collection.
August 2, 2024
Woof. Opened this up to read a couple poems and read the whole thing. The way Patricia Smith plays with perspective is gorgeous and nauseating: a dog left tied to a tree, a survivor, a dead body in the water, Katrina herself. The phrase “blood dazzler” itself—oof, oof, oof.
September 5, 2008
Patricia Smith enters into the voice of New Orleans in her opening prologue—And Then She Owns You—this is a haunting percursor to this series of poems about Katrina. In third person persona the city of New Orleans: "tells you leave your life. Pack your little suitcase,/flee what is rigid..."
Then she enters into the meat of the pre-storm using National Hurricane reports, an email message to Michael Brown, the whereabouts of President Bush in her epigraphs. Her book is a storm itself giving voice to Katrina itself, "I was bitch-monikered, hipped, I hefted/a whip rain, a swirling sheet of grit."
The eye of this category 5 hurricane overtakes us in this book with her relentless details. We watch with growing trepidation the dog, Luther B, tied to a tree left behind; he returns through his owner considering him, "Bet he done broke lose." Then to his personified voice, until he ascends, "smashed level with the mud,/smalled/by roaring days, and a sky/he trusted,..."
There are poems for Voodoo Spells 1 through 8, from Love and Passion to Spiritual Cleansing and Blessing.
This reinactment of Katrina unveils multitudes with raw emotion. We've heard about those who died in the nursing home, here we lie with them as the water rises.
We've seen the photos of this water logged city, now we enter through our heart, Patricia's words take us into the eye and toss us, opening our hearts wide. I hope her words will help mobilize our energies to voice a demand to stop what Naomi Klein understands as diaster economics or politics that equals ethnic cleansing.
Then she enters into the meat of the pre-storm using National Hurricane reports, an email message to Michael Brown, the whereabouts of President Bush in her epigraphs. Her book is a storm itself giving voice to Katrina itself, "I was bitch-monikered, hipped, I hefted/a whip rain, a swirling sheet of grit."
The eye of this category 5 hurricane overtakes us in this book with her relentless details. We watch with growing trepidation the dog, Luther B, tied to a tree left behind; he returns through his owner considering him, "Bet he done broke lose." Then to his personified voice, until he ascends, "smashed level with the mud,/smalled/by roaring days, and a sky/he trusted,..."
There are poems for Voodoo Spells 1 through 8, from Love and Passion to Spiritual Cleansing and Blessing.
This reinactment of Katrina unveils multitudes with raw emotion. We've heard about those who died in the nursing home, here we lie with them as the water rises.
We've seen the photos of this water logged city, now we enter through our heart, Patricia's words take us into the eye and toss us, opening our hearts wide. I hope her words will help mobilize our energies to voice a demand to stop what Naomi Klein understands as diaster economics or politics that equals ethnic cleansing.
July 7, 2015
This book was positively phenomenal. Every word was chosen carefully and perfectly placed. The collection sings of the pain and glory of Katrina, the way that majesty can be more destruction than invention and more about what doesn't live through it than what survives untouched. Smith gives voice to the storm: "The difference in a given name. What the calling,/the hard K,does to the steel of me,/ how suddenly and surely it grants me/pulse, petulance." She listens to a dog dead in the water, lets a tired old woman speak of the glory of her own drowing into the arms of angels, dramtizes the national indifference that appeared on the heels of this disaster.
The use of form is expertly done, with a gorgeous sestina(He wipes my brow with steam, says I should sleep./I trust his every word. Herbert my son./I believe him when he says help gon' come."), a fantastic series of tankas, and the brilliant incorporation of primary sources inmy favorite poem "What to Tweak". The book is both a group of individual poems and a single vast song. Each poem moves seamlessly into the next, creating a work much more effective than it's component parts. One final excerpt from "34":
The use of form is expertly done, with a gorgeous sestina(He wipes my brow with steam, says I should sleep./I trust his every word. Herbert my son./I believe him when he says help gon' come."), a fantastic series of tankas, and the brilliant incorporation of primary sources inmy favorite poem "What to Tweak". The book is both a group of individual poems and a single vast song. Each poem moves seamlessly into the next, creating a work much more effective than it's component parts. One final excerpt from "34":
8.
When help comes,
it will be young men smelling like cigarettes and Chevys,
muscles boys with autumn breath and steel baskets
just the right size for our souls.
To save us, they will rub our gums with hard bread.
They will offer us
water.
November 29, 2011
I saw her read here in LA in a night at the Getty, and had to buy her book. What a gorgeous gorgeous poet, passionate, exact. This book is all about Hurricane Katrina, and she can be both the hurricane itself, and a dog left chained to a tree, and everything in between. It's exactly the kind of intense condensation of feeling and fact that makes poetry the news that's always new. You can see why this was nominated for the National Book Award. Brilliant. Patricia Smith has a fan for life.
June 19, 2018
I found much to admire, especially in terms of form in this collection. However, I was hoping the collection would teach me or articulate something new about Katrina and its aftermath. I grew up in New Orleans and the storm displaced my relatives; maybe I know more than the average reader would. That said, even within the collection, I saw repetition when I longed to consider the storm in a way I hadn’t yet.
March 19, 2016
Finally a collection of poetry that's worth reading. Every poem in this collection is amazing, but the ones that were simply spectacular were Man on the TV Say, Won't Be But a Minute, She Sees What It Sees, What to Tweak, Siblings, and Katrina.
What to Tweak, Siblings and Katrina were the best. Cannot say enough good things about this collection.
What to Tweak, Siblings and Katrina were the best. Cannot say enough good things about this collection.
May 2, 2024
Company's Coming
Hell, I rode the back of the last one.
It was all they said it was, but I rode her good.
The key to making it through
is to strap yourself hard against a thing,
keep your mouth shut tight
lest all that wrong weather gets in.
She gon' slap the black offa you now,
don't get me wrong, but that big fuss
don't last but a hot minute.
Just lay yourself flat while ol' girl
points her chaos towards your upturned ass,
just hold onto maybe while she blows away
what you thought would hold you down.
Ain't no feeling like the one when it's all over
and you still here. So go on, peek through the blinds.
See a mad-ass woman with us in her eye?
She picks her teeth with prayers. Get ready to ride.
Patricia Smith's homage to New Orleans devastated by Hurricane Katrina, Blood Dazzler, suffers from the same affliction as so many other poetic collections written to articulate the city and its storm: It's maudlin, it lacks specificity and reaches for stereotypes instead of concrete details which show the poet really doesn't understand New Orleans. A word of advice: If you're a poet and you choose Hurricane Katrina and New Orleans as your subject, do not--I emphasize DO NOT--believe that the words voodoo, Tabasco, Mardi Gras, or beads will give your poems an exotic, intoxicating New Orleans flavor. It screams "non-native." For example, consider this passage from a Katrina-inspired poem from Peter Cooley's collection Night Bus to the Afterlife:
The hurricane passed over New Orleans.
No one foresaw the toll its wake could make,
the graves disgorging bodies, the new dead
fallen from rooftops where they sought refuge,
the looters with their only chance at bread.
from "To Christ Out Lord"
There's a distinct difference in voice and in approach, though Patricia Smith and Peter Cooley transform the same lore.
Yet there is a "however" here: Patricia Smith is a gifted wordsmith and manages to craft a collection which, despite tendencies which reveal gaps in her understanding of New Orleans, resonates. In her collection, the hurricane, bodies, and emotions all swirl and eddy. She articulates the frustration and pain of dealing with a senseless tragedy. While she does employ maudlin themes (especially with a series of poems focusing on the loss of a dog named Luthor B.), employs stereotypes and cliches, she manages to examine the consequences of the storm as her characters react to loss, displacement, or even the after-life.
All in all, this collection surprised me. I didn't initially buy into Smith's epic, but her unique poetic voice and imagery won me over. Hurricane Katrina can inspire decent poetry after all. Who would have thunk it?
Give Me My Name
A paper tag was pinned to her T-shirt.
The blue blurring must have been her name.
She had died next to someone who wanted
her whole and known in this world.
Now her fingerprints slide away with the skin
of her fingers. Five days in the putrid water
have doubled her, slapped the brown light
from her body. She could be anyone now,
pudged, eyeless, oddly gray.
Now she's one of silver's citizens,
filed with her breathless sisters,
all of them waiting for a smidgen of spit,
a hair caught in a discarded brush,
a sliver of bone to script their stories,
rub the killing flood from their numbers.
No one removes her tag, its careful letters
now just flat blue smashes of spiral and line.
This is all the breath there is in the room.
It is the only thing not saying
give her back to the water.
It is the only thing not saying dead.
Hell, I rode the back of the last one.
It was all they said it was, but I rode her good.
The key to making it through
is to strap yourself hard against a thing,
keep your mouth shut tight
lest all that wrong weather gets in.
She gon' slap the black offa you now,
don't get me wrong, but that big fuss
don't last but a hot minute.
Just lay yourself flat while ol' girl
points her chaos towards your upturned ass,
just hold onto maybe while she blows away
what you thought would hold you down.
Ain't no feeling like the one when it's all over
and you still here. So go on, peek through the blinds.
See a mad-ass woman with us in her eye?
She picks her teeth with prayers. Get ready to ride.
Patricia Smith's homage to New Orleans devastated by Hurricane Katrina, Blood Dazzler, suffers from the same affliction as so many other poetic collections written to articulate the city and its storm: It's maudlin, it lacks specificity and reaches for stereotypes instead of concrete details which show the poet really doesn't understand New Orleans. A word of advice: If you're a poet and you choose Hurricane Katrina and New Orleans as your subject, do not--I emphasize DO NOT--believe that the words voodoo, Tabasco, Mardi Gras, or beads will give your poems an exotic, intoxicating New Orleans flavor. It screams "non-native." For example, consider this passage from a Katrina-inspired poem from Peter Cooley's collection Night Bus to the Afterlife:
The hurricane passed over New Orleans.
No one foresaw the toll its wake could make,
the graves disgorging bodies, the new dead
fallen from rooftops where they sought refuge,
the looters with their only chance at bread.
from "To Christ Out Lord"
There's a distinct difference in voice and in approach, though Patricia Smith and Peter Cooley transform the same lore.
Yet there is a "however" here: Patricia Smith is a gifted wordsmith and manages to craft a collection which, despite tendencies which reveal gaps in her understanding of New Orleans, resonates. In her collection, the hurricane, bodies, and emotions all swirl and eddy. She articulates the frustration and pain of dealing with a senseless tragedy. While she does employ maudlin themes (especially with a series of poems focusing on the loss of a dog named Luthor B.), employs stereotypes and cliches, she manages to examine the consequences of the storm as her characters react to loss, displacement, or even the after-life.
All in all, this collection surprised me. I didn't initially buy into Smith's epic, but her unique poetic voice and imagery won me over. Hurricane Katrina can inspire decent poetry after all. Who would have thunk it?
Give Me My Name
A paper tag was pinned to her T-shirt.
The blue blurring must have been her name.
She had died next to someone who wanted
her whole and known in this world.
Now her fingerprints slide away with the skin
of her fingers. Five days in the putrid water
have doubled her, slapped the brown light
from her body. She could be anyone now,
pudged, eyeless, oddly gray.
Now she's one of silver's citizens,
filed with her breathless sisters,
all of them waiting for a smidgen of spit,
a hair caught in a discarded brush,
a sliver of bone to script their stories,
rub the killing flood from their numbers.
No one removes her tag, its careful letters
now just flat blue smashes of spiral and line.
This is all the breath there is in the room.
It is the only thing not saying
give her back to the water.
It is the only thing not saying dead.
January 11, 2026
god. this was beautiful but sickening and haunting and just. wow. i’m too young to remember katrina being on the news (i was born in late 2000) but of course i’ve always heard about the horrible lack of response from the gov & how they didn’t do it justice when (if) it was taught in school. this collection made me realize just how little i really know and just how fucking horrible it really was. absolutely beautifully done and wow. i need to read more of patricia smith’s work immediately
my favorites:
- Prologue—And Then She Owns You
- 5 p.m., Tuesday, August 23, 2005
- 11 a.m., Wednesday, August 24, 2005
- 5 p.m., Thursday, August 25, 2005
- 7 p.m., Thursday, August 25, 2005
- Man on the TV Say
- Won’t Be but a Minute
- What to Tweak
- The President Flies Over
- Tankas
- Dream Lover
- Ethel’s Sestina
- 34
- What Betsy Has to Say
- Katrina (p. 76)
- Voodoo VIII: Spiritual Cleansing & Blessing
my favorites:
- Prologue—And Then She Owns You
- 5 p.m., Tuesday, August 23, 2005
- 11 a.m., Wednesday, August 24, 2005
- 5 p.m., Thursday, August 25, 2005
- 7 p.m., Thursday, August 25, 2005
- Man on the TV Say
- Won’t Be but a Minute
- What to Tweak
- The President Flies Over
- Tankas
- Dream Lover
- Ethel’s Sestina
- 34
- What Betsy Has to Say
- Katrina (p. 76)
- Voodoo VIII: Spiritual Cleansing & Blessing
April 15, 2021
Searing and beautiful. I loved this collection of poems.
In Patricia Smith's hands, Katrina is a woman - capricious and longing and destructive:
I was a rudderless woman in full tantrum,
throwing my body against worlds I wanted.
I never saw harm in lending that ache.
All I ever wanted to be
was a wet, gorgeous mistake,
a reason to crave shelter.
As the minutes count down and Katrina builds and nears, the ordinary and the extraordinary that make up the life in New Orleans continues. And, everyone watches mute and motionless, most notably Bush et al. in the gov who reacted poorly and unpreparedly to the disaster. Smith's words spare nothing for their ineptitude, as well as for the media's own complicity in creating the kind of trauma porn that does little but re-vicitmize those who have already suffered the most.
And the levees crackled,
and baptism rushed through the war,
blasting boasts from storefronts,
sweeping away the rooted, the untethered,
bending doors, withering the strength of stoops.
There is hardly a page in this collection that didn't end up with an underline, an exclamation, an adoring aside.
Read it. It's so worth it.
In Patricia Smith's hands, Katrina is a woman - capricious and longing and destructive:
I was a rudderless woman in full tantrum,
throwing my body against worlds I wanted.
I never saw harm in lending that ache.
All I ever wanted to be
was a wet, gorgeous mistake,
a reason to crave shelter.
As the minutes count down and Katrina builds and nears, the ordinary and the extraordinary that make up the life in New Orleans continues. And, everyone watches mute and motionless, most notably Bush et al. in the gov who reacted poorly and unpreparedly to the disaster. Smith's words spare nothing for their ineptitude, as well as for the media's own complicity in creating the kind of trauma porn that does little but re-vicitmize those who have already suffered the most.
And the levees crackled,
and baptism rushed through the war,
blasting boasts from storefronts,
sweeping away the rooted, the untethered,
bending doors, withering the strength of stoops.
There is hardly a page in this collection that didn't end up with an underline, an exclamation, an adoring aside.
Read it. It's so worth it.
August 6, 2023
This hurt!!! Easily one of the best poetry collections I’ve ever read. The bold use of persona in these poems gave the book so much character, and brought the poems to life.
Some of my favorite poems in the bunch:
- Won’t Be but a Minute
- What to Tweak
- Ms. Thang Sloshes in the Direction of Home
- 34
Wow!! I love you Patricia Smith!!
Some of my favorite poems in the bunch:
- Won’t Be but a Minute
- What to Tweak
- Ms. Thang Sloshes in the Direction of Home
- 34
Wow!! I love you Patricia Smith!!
August 3, 2021
Finalist? How was this collection not the winner of the National Book Award & Pulitzer its year of publication. Mind-blowingly good and upsetting. Amazing craft & raw intensity. Point of view and form selections incredible. One of my all time favorite poetry collections: a must read.
April 13, 2024
Astonishing
Breathtaking
Captivating
Dazzling
Exceptional
Fabulous
Glorious
Haunting
Incandescent
Jubilant
Kindred
Luminous
Magnificent
Nonpareil
Outstanding
Phenomenal
Quintessential
Resonant
Sublime
Transcendent
Unforgettable
Vibrant
Wondrous
eXemplary
Yearning
Zesty
Breathtaking
Captivating
Dazzling
Exceptional
Fabulous
Glorious
Haunting
Incandescent
Jubilant
Kindred
Luminous
Magnificent
Nonpareil
Outstanding
Phenomenal
Quintessential
Resonant
Sublime
Transcendent
Unforgettable
Vibrant
Wondrous
eXemplary
Yearning
Zesty
August 8, 2018
This book was gorgeous, stark, and powerful. Hurricane Katrina is a topic I've avoided in general because it's so intense, so full of racism and indifference and pain. I think I feel guilty, because I was a grown-up when it happened, and could have done more to help, and also terrible things are always happening and I need to do more to help.
October 3, 2019
Heartbreaking. I plan to use these poems alongside Jesmyn Ward's Savage the Bones.
Read
September 2, 2021It was depressingly apropos to read this on the 16th anniversary of Katrina, with Ida bearing down on New Orleans.
November 21, 2024
Read for class - I think I would like it a lot better if I didn’t, but I still really like the approach smith took to telling the story in a linear but not quite way through the different poems
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