American Smooth

by Rita Dove

"Rita Dove pulls the ultimate dance trick: she makes it look easy."-- New York Times Book Review An occasion to celebrate: a new collection by the Pulitzer Prize-winning former poet laureate; her first since On the Bus with Rosa Parks . With the grace of an Astaire, Rita Dove's magnificent poems pay homage to our kaleidoscopic cultural heritage; from the glorious shimmer of an operatic soprano to Bessie Smith's mournful wail; from paradise lost to angel food cake; from hotshots at the local shooting range to the Negro jazz band in World War I whose music conquered Europe before the Allied advance. Like the ballroom-dancing couple of the title poem, smiling and making the difficult seem effortless, Dove explores the shifting surfaces between perception and intimation.

Genres: Poetry, Black Literature, African American Literature, Contemporary, Literary Fiction, Fiction

144 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2004

About the author

Rita Dove, former U.S. Poet Laureate, Pulitzer Prize winner, and musician, lives in Charlottesville, where she is Commonwealth Professor of English at the University of Virginia.

Reviews

[Alyson Hagy · Rating 4 out of 5]

A book of Rita Dove's I had never read. It's elegant and musical, historically wide-ranging, and also surprising--in its range of tones and forms. There are sequences like "Twelve Chairs" and "Not Welcome Here" I won't soon forget. But the everlasting power may be in Dove's powerful investment in American dance (fox trot, two-step, etc.) and how it infuses every liquid line of this fine collection. Dove remains one of the best choreographers of language around.

[Beth · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was perfect for what I wanted. I read a few poems each night before sleep, and these were short enough that I stayed alert, evocative and thoughtful enough to quiet me down, and understandable enough that I didn’t feel frustrated or cranky.

[Beth · Rating 5 out of 5]

Every poem in this book is perfect. Rita Dove is an amazingly gifted, Pulitzer Prize-winning author. Each poem is perfectly crafted, incredibly evocative and generally gorgeous. I have not read a book of poetry in a long, long time. I am so thrilled that this was chosen as the February book for my workplace book club. You should read it now ;)

[Hannah Patterson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Selected poems from this book, such as "Heart to Heart," would be great for middle school students because of the length and accessibility. Specifically, "Heart to Heart" would be relevant to middle school students because it discusses the troubles and thrills of a heartbeat, connectable to their wildly-developing emotions at this stage of life. Written from the perspective of an undefined speaker, this poem could serve as a writing exercise for students to imagine who is writing it and why (could easily appear on a blog post, in a magazine, private journal, etc.). "Heart to Heart" could serve as a model text for students to write about another part of their body (slow feet, trembling hands, eyes that will only look down, etc.), and could also open up a discussion on word choice/sentence fluency (How does the poem create the rhythm of a heartbeat? Why do you think she chose these specific words to convey her heart?).

[Mallory Everhart · Rating 3 out of 5]

Sealey Challenge 2/31. Rita Dove is a really interesting writer - she draws really significantly on Black history and culture and renders it in a lush, colorful, tactile way which was a pleasure to read. There are some really incredible poems in this collection and some that weren't for me, which is fine. I'm glad I read it.

[Ella Curcuruto · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love love love Rita Dove. Such an excellent sound to her work, the particular words she chooses and the songs they sing. My only qualms are with the structure of a few poems; I will never be quite comfortable with a series of one-word lines. Could’ve been a sentence.

[Brendan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Rating: Soft 4. 3 1/2 for the poetry, with a boost for some interesting ideas.

There's a long poem titled: "Twelve Chairs", with a segment from the perspective of each member of a jury (and one alternate as well). The second, seventh, and twelfth stood out to me.

"Not Welcome Here" is a series of poems about black soldiers in World War One. The most notable of these is "The Passage" - 11 pages of a soldier's journal entries about the voyage across the Atlantic to get to the war. Though it didn't quite work for me as a poem, it was still interesting stuff.

My favorite pieces in this collection:

"Fox Trot Fridays"
"Brown" - her skin
"Desk Dreams" features segments from different desks she has known: in Arizona, France, North Carolina, Italy, and Virginia. Though I think the concept is a bit better than the execution.


The difference between a moan and a hallelujah
ain't much of a slide. - "Noble Sissle's Horn"

We all died of insignificance. - "The Sisters: Swansong"

[Rita · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love, love, love the poems in this book. Not sure why other people gave it less stars since it is a fantastic collection. :) I have probably read it cover to cover at least 10 times, not to mention constantly copying out poems to share with others. One of my favorites is the poem about a heart and the metaphors usually used to describe the heart (beating on a sleeve, locked in a box, cracking, rending), but it's just a "thick clutch of muscle". And I also really like the cover.

[Kath · Rating 5 out of 5]

I don't know how Ms. Dove's works hadn't come across my awareness before. Poet Laureate and Pulitzer Prize winner in poetry ... and well deserved. She's amazing. American Smooth is earthy, accessible and wise, bitter and smooth in the way of good dark chocolate, and an amazing lens through which to see the world.

I do love my modern women poets, and Ms. Dove has joined the ranks of my favorites. This is a wonderful volume, well worth picking up and devoting your time to.

[Xavier · Rating 5 out of 5]

A book of poetry is like a record album--how the separate pieces work together as a whole is still beyond me, but like a record, having the entire thing for a couple of outstanding songs is still worth it; that goes for American Smooth as well. Not that I can really judge the poems that don't stand out for me. I just don't understand them. The ones that do get to me however....

[Ingrid · Rating 4 out of 5]

Love her poetry

[Madeline · Rating 4 out of 5]

There are poems about WWI and poems about dancing, and I'm easy to please.

[Mary Beth · Rating 5 out of 5]

These poems will transport you to other times, other places and let you see from the eyes of other people. "Heart to Heart" is one of many excellent poems here. Historical, biblical, musical poems.

[nicole · Rating 5 out of 5]

She is amazing. The end.

[J.D. Estrada · Rating 3 out of 5]

Poetry is a curious thing because although this collection has its lovely moments, quite often I found myself unable to connect with the verses. It wasn't all the time or every poem, but specifically the ones about war I had a hard time connecting with. The ones about the twelve jurors though were extremely poignant but this collection was literally hit and miss for me. For every poem I liked I came across another that failed to move the needle in my heart. It's not to say this collection is not competent, or even good, it's to say that as humans, and readers, and lovers of words, it's curious to see what strikes a chord and what falls flat. I think I had the hardest time when I saw poems where it seemed as if Rita Dove was trying too hard, to either impress me, or do something complicated, or communicate a very particular experience, and its curious to internalize how fragile and random we are. But hey, someone else might read this collection and fall in love with it, and that's the beauty of words. Someone somewhere will connect, and it doesn't have to be you for you to appreciate the words on a page.

[Drew · Rating 3 out of 5]

I confess I was hoping for the thematic throughline of "Mother Love" (her rich collection inspired by the Persephone myth) and while ballroom dancing does connect many of these poems, there are more that aren't related or are connected to each other in different ways: war, the courtroom, etc. It's still good -- especially pieces like "Hattie McDaniel Arrives at the Coconut Grove" and the title work -- but once you've been spoiled with a unified series, a sampler makes you yearn for more.

[Leslie · Rating 4 out of 5]

“Daybreak, of course; no more strobe and pink gels / from the heavenly paint shop; just / house lights, play’s over, time to gather your things and go home.” - the closing verse in American Smooth, poems by Rita Dove This volume of poems is deep and wide. Dove covers a huge range of subjects - dance, history, love - and techniques. So many of the pieces are so clever and layered in history or language that I felt out of my depths as a reader quite a bit. The Twelve Chairs section of poems was maybe my favorite in the book, so sparse and lovely.

[Cris · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a great book of classic poems. My favorite has to be the one regarding Hattie McDaniel Arrives at the Coconut Grove and Eliza, Age 10, Harlem. Great read for a lazy evening or Sunday afternoon.

[Daniel Kleven · Rating 4 out of 5]

Contains the poem "Heart to Heart" which I teach as part of the Wit and Wisdom 4th grade ELA curriculum. Dove is a Pulitzer prize winning poet, and former Poet Laureate. I enjoyed working through this collection.

[Isaac · Rating 4 out of 5]

A wide field of poems that remain rhythmic and fluid. Not one feels out of place.

Some favorites:
Hattie McDaniel Arrives at the Coconut Grove
Rhumba (like…I started blushing)
Sic Itur Ad Astra ( “the shape of my dreaming / creasing the sheets” okay awesome alert)
Now

[Jasonlylescampbell · Rating 3 out of 5]

My favorite in this collection was her poems based on inteviews with a black Corporal in the army going over to fight in WWI.

[Katy-Lynn · Rating 4 out of 5]

Rita Dove ate and left no crumbs. “Blues in half-tones” and “evening primrose” sections, my beloveds.

[Madison Buxton · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beautiful, stirring, and lyrical. Loved it.

[Catherine Bishop · Rating 3 out of 5]

There were some real winners, there were some real snoozers. Clearly a strong overall poet though and I will seek out more of her work.

[Katie · Rating 3 out of 5]

I picked this up because "Heart to Heart" is one of my favorite poems.

[Christopher Sandstrom · Rating 3 out of 5]

The dance metaphor makes this collection fun. The poems about dances--"Fox Trot Fridays," "Ta Ta Cha Cha," "Rhumba"--made me feel as if I were not just reading, but really dancing.

American history in this collection comes alive, both as a broad sweep for the structure of the book, and as powerful images and voices throughout the work. The experiences of music, war, and even jury duty became my own experiences.

Although these poems were collected from diverse sources, Dove arranged them effectively. This is a nicely unified work as a book in its own right.

These poems (if they can be called "experiments") are successful experiments in form. The stanzaic structures are well crafted to reflect the poems' moods.

Why only three stars? It's only my preference, but I get put off by vulgarity in poetry. I must concede that in one instance here, vulgarity was used to great effect: namely, in description of combat, vulgarity appropriately conveys the raw feeling of mobid experience. In other instances, certain expressions just seemed like rotting stench in the midst of a fragrant poetic garden.

In all, I like this book. Reading Dove's poetry aloud is fun and often powerful. I might read it again in the future.

[Christina M Rau · Rating 3 out of 5]

I had thought that "American smooth" was a catchy title about language. You know, smooth talkin' lingo in America. While Rita Dove has an amazing handle on smooth language, that's not what "American smooth" is. It's a dance, like a waltz, but with snazzy individual flair added. That definition makes the dance sound not smooth at all, but that's America for ya. I have no idea what I mean by that. I do know that Dove's collection, American Smooth, incorporates the rhythm of dancing with the rhythm of language while tackling topics like race and gender and social strife. Those issues take on a rhythm of their own, and Dove makes it all seem like it is what it is because that's the way it's supposed to be. She's smooth like that. The collection runs smoothly. The ideas run seamlessly. Like a dance. Like America. Again, I don't know what the hell I'm saying, but maybe you know what I mean. It's a good book.

[Stephen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Dove has written some great poems and there are some good ones in here. I get the feeling while reading some books of poems that the author is just getting a book out there instead of letting these things sit awhile and then revising them. I don't think this is necessarily a fault of Dove, but of publishing in general.

Dove hits the mark with some lines and descriptions: "a dirty wingspan/of the daily news" and "tidy rupture." "Twelve Chairs" and "Evening Primrose" are my favorite sequences in the book. As part of an installation by Larry Kirkland, the "Twelve Chairs" sequence was carved on the backs of twelve marble chairs in the lobby of the Federal Court House in Sacramento.

[Sybille · Rating 3 out of 5]

It is musical poetry, so I will read it out loud again from time to time, I only did a few for now. I heard the author on the radio, reading her own poems, which is so much better, but I will try my best. I loved her way of reading and her talking about her earliest poems, I think from 4th grade. I may try her other books, too.

[C · Rating 3 out of 5]

I enjoyed the world war 2 section and most of the poems in the last section of the book. Otherwise, I was a bit disappointed overall. I have liked other poems by Rita Dove much more than anything I found in this collection.