Unshuttered: Poems

by Patricia Smith

An award-winning author presents a portrait of Black America in the nineteenth century

Over the course of two decades, award-winning poet Patricia Smith has amassed a collection of rare nineteenth-century photographs of Black men, women, and children who, in these pages, regard us from the staggering distance of time. Unshuttered  is a vessel for the voices of their incendiary and critical era. Smith’s searing stanzas and revelatory language imbue the subjects of the photos with dynamism and revived urgency while she explores how her own past of triumphs and losses is linked inextricably to their long-ago We ache for fiction etched in black and white. Our eyes never touch. These tragic grays and bustles, mourners’
hats plopped high upon our tamed but tangled crowns, strain to disguise what yearning does with us. The poet’s unrivaled dexterity with dramatic monologue and poetic form reanimates these countenances, staring back from such yesterdays, and the stories they may have told. This is one of American literature’s finest wordsmiths doing what she does best—unreeling history to find its fierce and formidable lyric.

Genres: Poetry, History, Photography, Nonfiction, Female Authors

120 pages, Hardcover

Published February 15, 2023

Reviews

[Raymond · Rating 3 out of 5]

A unique poetry collection where a poem is paired with a 19th Century photo of a Black person. Smith tells stories/creates lives of mostly unknown everyday people just by examining and analyzing the facial expressions, demeanor, attire, etc. My favorite poems are #10, #21, and #40 (the cover photo was paired with this poem).

"I became obsessed with conjuring voices that reflect who the subjects in the pictures may have been and how they are inextricably connected to us." -Patricia Smith, "Preface", Unshuttered

[Roger DeBlanck · Rating 4 out of 5]

Smith assembles a stunningly gorgeous and equally transfixing collection of nineteenth-century photographs of Black men, women, and children. As she explains her fascination with these beautiful photos in her Preface, she kept looking at them until they began to speak to her. I too found myself spellbound by the dignity and mystery of the individuals in these portrait photos. Who are they? What types of lives did they lead?

Smith’s creative yearning works to give each of them a voice, and I commend her poetic vision and desire with this project, but I just did not connect with the “voices” she attempts to give the photos. Her poems come off as overly embellished and trying to be too cleverly profound to where I became uninterested in her imaginings about these people. Instead, I began studying the photos and attempting to formulate my own ideas as to who they were and what they may have been thinking.

Unshuttered is a wonderful concept and the photos Smith chooses are indeed stunning and entrancing, but I almost think this book would work better without her accompanying poems. Perhaps, just a brief description or anecdote would have sufficed, similar to what Toni Morrison did with superb affect by offering prose of thought-provoking simplicity to historical photos about school integration in her book Remember. Nonetheless, I’m giving Smith’s project four stars because I share her fascination with the photos, even as I feel her words don’t quite match the spellbinding mystery of the individuals.

[Emily Perkovich · Rating 5 out of 5]

I rounded this up from between 4.5 stars because I think this is work that deserves to be read. Many of these pieces were gorgeous and haunting. I am not typically a lover of ekphrastic work, but the nature of the photos made this work for me. My singular complaint is that it became repetitive. I personally prefer darker work, so the consistent melancholy and trauma and bits of rage worked for me. But, I think I may have needed a few more pieces that had something akin to small sweet spots to contrast and really draw out just how bad the bitter could be so that it didn’t end up feeling like the same old story over and over. There was a piece about a set of teenage boys (one black and one white) and that one really stands out for me and stuck with me in such a haunting way for the inclusion of the way the good things could sour. All of the darkness and trauma is well represented and written, and I am sure that individually reading any of these pieces they would become extremely memorable for me. Thank you to TriQuarterly and NetGalley for the ARC.

[Sacha · Rating 5 out of 5]

5 stars

In this unforgettable collection, Patricia Smith uses the inspiration of - as described in the preface - years of collected images and creates a voice and an experience for each one. Anyone familiar with Smith's work will be expecting a memorable and indelible set of entries; those expectations - for me - were exceeded.

The images themselves are captivating, and each poem comes in that format: image then text. Smith reveals a variety of experiences and richness and picks up on both visible and anticipated details. Readers' hearts and guts may be in knots the whole time, and while that is to some degree the point, there is also a powerful sense that comes through Smith's interpretation of the source material. Viewing the images feels voyeuristic in some ways, but there's something quite meaningful about considering the paths that the images have taken over time. Smith is likely the first to provide a voice to the individuals here versus using the images to further objectify them.

I have enjoyed Smith's work always, and I love teaching it. I cannot wait to bring selections from this collection to my students. It's a guarantee that they - and anyone lucky enough to encounter this work - will find the read lifechanging.

*Special thanks to NetGalley and TriQuarterly for this arc, which I received in exchange for an honest review. The opinions expressed here are my own.

[Kendra · Rating 5 out of 5]

Just before I read this remarkable book, I visited the New Orleans Museum of Art's "Called to the Camera: Black American Studio Photographers" exhibit. There I saw hundreds of photographs made by Black studio photographers from all over the United States from the beginning of the genre to the present. Like Patricia Smith, I wondered about the lives and personalities and desires and sorrows of those who posed to have their images captured. Smith brings very real and very valid anger to her writing here, in which she speaks for or to those in the images she has found, imagining them as former enslaved persons, servants, aspiring artists, blue-collar workers, parents, children, the educated, the neglected. Her writing is direct and driving, imaginative and detail-focused. Highly recommended.

[Royce · Rating 5 out of 5]

I heard Patricia Smith read from her latest collection of poems last month. Ms. Smith explained at the reading, that once her mother moved from Alabama to Chicago, she had no interest in her past in Alabama. In fact, she refused to identify any of the people in the photos she carried with her from Alabama. Because of this, Patricia always wondered who these relatives were, what their lives were like in Alabama. Her mother’s refusal and what she termed “embarrassment” inspired her to discover who these people in the hundreds of photos of African Americans in the early 20th century Patricia found at garage sales, etc., throughout Connecticut, New York, Massachusetts, and a few other states were. Only a few of the photographs she found were identified with names on the back. Most were nameless. She stared, and stared. She became obsessed with their faces, the way in which they were dressed, what were they thinking, and why didn’t anyone look directly at the photographer? From all this curiosity arose these brilliant poems telling us, the readers, who they were and how they lived. The result is a varied collection of beautifully written poems, giving life to these people, who lived over 120 years ago. Highly recommended.

[Julia · Rating 3 out of 5]

For many years Patricia Smith has been collecting 19th-century photos of Black Americans. With a single exception, all of the photographs are anonymous, but in this collection Smith has invented lives, emotions, potentials, hopes, histories, fears, misfortunes and relationships for them in the form of poetry.

I selected this title to fulfill the Read Harder category "an indie published collection of poetry by a BIPOC author," and I love the idea of this work, the imagining of who these individuals were. Though it has left me on one hand with a feeling of tenderness, as the family archivist who gets excited every time a new, previously unknown photograph of my ancestors is unearthed, I find the idea that the descendants of these anonymous individuals may never have seen an image of their ancestor, even though these precious photos exist unidentified, more than a little devastating. The photographs were the most meaningful aspect of this book to me. The poetry didn't speak to me, but that is because poetry rarely speaks to me (confidential to all poetry: it's not you, it's me).

[Caitlin · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really loved reading this poetry collection!
I absolutely loved how each poem was linked to a picture! I really could visualise these people telling me their thoughts through the words and it was so moving!
I loved taking in all the poems and people!
I would definitely recommend this poet and this poetry collection! It was amazing!!
I wish each poem had a title just so I could give examples of my favourite ones!

[April Gray · Rating 5 out of 5]

Poetry is difficult for me to review; it tends to be open to interpretation, and can hit in very personal ways that are hard to explain to others, so I won't try to say how this collection made me feel. I'll say it was thoughtful and affecting, that the quiet little peeks into the possible lives of these unknown people will stay with me, and that people should read this powerful collection.

#Unshuttered #NetGalley

[keondra freemyn]

the images are absolutely breathtaking. i wanted more from the poetry. admittedly i’m a bit biased having recently studied Black portraiture from this era, but i found the poetic narratives to be misaligned with the history of Black people within that time frame, in the specified regions. the poetry skews mostly toward themes of enslavement and the horrors of that and lack the nuance i think that time period deserves. especially since most of the images are likely to have been taken 20+ years after the end of chattel slavery in the US and in the north and midwest where those practices had been long over. not to say that Black folks didn’t endure racism and hardship in that era, but that there are so many richer stories to be told of love and family and home and displacement and ownership and community etc etc. i would’ve like to see more of those themes shine through.

[Anne Bennett · Rating 4 out of 5]

Super impactful.

The poet located old 19th century photos of Blacks. Hard to find. Only one among the group is a named individual. Poems give the people in the photos a story. Many of the stories are heartbreaking.

[Angela · Rating 4 out of 5]

Unshuttered Poems by Patricia Smith

I’ve always wondered why people sold old photos at estate sales. I mean really. If they weren’t famous or part of an important girl/boy band what was the point. Maybe they got thrown out of a photographer’s studio or the last in the line died and there was no one who could recognize or knew enough to keep them in the family. And who would buy them? It was beyond my comprehension. But Patricia Smith in her powerful, Unshuttered Poems, gives us a reason for taking a second look at these mysterious and previously disconnected offerings. Ms. Smith takes 42 photos of 19th century African Americans which she collected over years at estate sales, attics, online markets and gives them voice.

With no knowledge of the people in the photos, except sometimes what studio they were taken in, Ms. Smith gives each photo a voice, a persona. From Maine to Boston to New York; Colorado to Nebraska to Ohio; San Francisco to Missouri to Connecticut; Tennessee to Virginia, Ms. Smith adds voice and historical perspective to these photos. Emerging after slavery but close enough to recall through blood or tales the horrors of bondage, yet existing in a country where the black body moving freely was still an aberration where much was spoken and more unspoken. If the eyes are a window to the soul, Ms. Smith invites us on a journey to truly look at what is before us. In this age of Instagram and Facebook where taglines accompany our every photo, Unshuttered invites us to ponder what is said behind the eyes behind the stance absent of context except place and time.

There are no titles to these poems. They are numbered placing the weight on the photos that accompany the lines. Eyes that say one thing but mean another. Finery worn but is it bought or borrowed. Posing with a smile of those who use to be master’s and from the looks of it still are. Family, happy or torn asunder. Sibling rivalry due to the color line that speaks volume. Stances of confidence or cowardice. Young and old. All with stories to tell. One of the things I love about these poems is that they need not stop with Ms. Smith’s seeing. As I look at the photos what do I see. What are they saying to me. Am I aligned with Ms. Smith’s version or might I have a seeing/hearing of my own. The photos become the canvass of a time capsule I want to share. These are souls I want to know, do know, care to know.

The last poem in the volume, “Unshuttered”, is unaccompanied by photo. It is a poem of big questions. About reality and subterfuge, about belonging and vulnerability. It is a poem asking the reader to examine ourselves. What we know and what we think we know. What we see and what is being presented to us. I believe it is inviting us to wonder and imagine. Free ourselves from what is before us and delve deep behind the windows of their eyes.

Angela Hendrix Terry
6/28/2024

[Bill · Rating 4 out of 5]

Patricia Smith tells us in her introduction to her poetry collection Unshuttered, that she has “amassed a collection of more than two hundred” images of 19th century Americans: cabinet cards, cartes de visite, abrotypes, daguerreotypes, and tintypes.” Most are unnamed, but all are, as she says, “silent”, trapped in the past and “confined within the stifling boundaries of the photographs … They cannot laugh, weep, speak, or scream.” It is through her poems in Unshuttered that Smith gives them a voice.

Each poem is introduced with the corresponding image, followed by the poem in the “voice” of the photograph’s subject (or subjects — most are single portraits, but several are of two or more people). Some of the poems capture moments or lives of happiness but given the time setting — during slavery and Reconstruction — most as one might imagine are of a darker, more sorrowful bent. While generally strong in their narratives, I did find myself wishing for a bit more variety in tone, not to obfuscate to true horrors of the time, but to depict both the horror and the resilience in its face.

Many of the events are one might expect: a father “coiled inside a hollow poplar” to escape slavehunters, a “rabid keeper [‘s] stinging blow,” a child’s body “hung … from a beam in the mill and while he swung they took their shotguns and fired and fired into that body,” and the unequal effect of illness, as when “the Yellow Jacket swept like a whisper torrent over Memphis and hit the Negroes hardest”, those who “were taught to rely on dying.” On the other hand, Smith doesn’t simply take the cheap way out to move the reader via describing the awfulness of the age, but plies a sharp craft in her use of language, as when she has one speaker ask if there “was enough kneel in my fact” or has another describe how “fingers minstrel my shoulders.”

Smith also shows a deft hand at the sound qualities of poetry. In one, the speaker asks that Anna, “heave my hurt and humbled body close, let pity drive your slight unwilling hips into the waiting, sweated blight of mine. The “h” alliteration is the most obvious but note as well the consonance of the soft “I” that runs through “pity-unwilling-hips-into” and the internal rhyme of “slight-blight” echoed by the hard “I”” in “mine.”

While as noted I would have liked more variety, and more of a sense of startlement when it comes to language and metaphor/imagery, this is a solid collection and, I’d argue, an important one in the way it gives voice, even speculative voice, to those who cannot speak for themselves and often could not even while alive.

[Patricia N. McLaughlin · Rating 4 out of 5]

This collection is notable for both the photographs and the ekphrastic poems inspired by the images, which emit lifelike presence as if the photographers have captured the caged bird of each subject’s soul. Some of the poems seem a bit anachronistic, though, and sound like the poet is performing a kind of ventriloquism with the subjects, putting “voice to every one” and modern words in mouths shuttered by time and space to create these portraits of lives “that misted so easily/ into myth” (p. 93). As Smith states in the Acknowledgments, “most of these stories come entirely from what I imagined as I looked into the faces of my forebears” (x). How would the subjects have told their own stories?

Favorite Poems:
4 [“She’s buttoned and laced up so stiff”]
11 [“Jim ignores the fraying”]
13 [“We ache for fiction etched in black and white”]
21 [“I swear, a wound was all I wished for”]
31 [“If you want to know how much escaping”]
41 [“They were captivated by a story”]
“Unshuttered”

[Karen · Rating 5 out of 5]

I picked up this gem while perusing the poetry shelves in our local library. Smith has a unique voice, a particular way of employing poetic techniques in an abstract way that communicates ideas clearly. In "Unshuttered", she imagines personalities and lives for Black citizens depicted in antique pictures (she culled 42 items from her personal collection of 19th- and early 20th-century images). Some of the poems play on facial expressions or poses; others touch on aspects of Black American history. I would be interested to know whether Smith researched events in the cities identified along with the photography studio names, to place the depicted individuals in those situations. "Unshuttered" is a worthwhile volume to add to my collection of poetry books -- it also gives me a few ideas about how students in my IB Literature classes could exercise their imaginations, using historical photos as a resource for writing.

[Ann · Rating 4 out of 5]

"I want to own this flat fixed sentence of tin so that everyone can take as gospel this chilled restraint, and we can just keep on whisper-living our lush life--which we will, whenever the night, our blacker sister, indulges us and cloaks the moon." 
For years Patricia Smith has been collecting 19th Century images of African Americans, and in this book the poet imagines the personae "confined within the stifling boundaries of the photographs." With great attention, empathy, and imagination, Smith conjures these unnamed people -- their trauma, rage, grief, shame, pride, joy. Some small part of each poem carries forward into the next, and in this way, all the different photos and stories are connected. It's beautifully done, the resulting story/poems as haunting as their corresponding black and white images. 

[Thanks Northwestern University Press and NetGalley for an opportunity to read an advanced reader copy and share my opinion of this book.]

[Courtney LeBlanc · Rating 4 out of 5]

A collection of poems based off of portraits of Black Americans of the nineteenth century, lives imagined and portrayed through poetry.

from 2: "Officially composed and gracefully caged / inside your picture-perfect City on a Hill, / I am queen of my thin path, daring thresholds, // justifying this languid sway of lace."

from 3: "Her holy solos in the hue / of mint and bourbon. Both her arms, gone swole by forty-three / years of a husband's work. Her mouth that hissed out what she wrote // in livid letters to that long-gone man."

from 20: "I could be your confounding daughter, wide-eyes in the ways / that puff your chest and make you keen to father me— / or a sibling, curling into sleep, deciding not to see. / Your awkward finger hovers, hears, then falls to stray. // Let your imagination reckon on my name."

[Dree · Rating 5 out of 5]

Smith has amassed an amazing collection of largely 19th century photographs of African-American men, women, and children. All unidentified, their faces lost to history and lost to their descendants. Smith has written poems to give each of these faces a story--stories based on what clues she has. The photographer's location from the frame. Clothing. Expression. Clothing and accessories. She has done her research, weaving in events in those cities, jobs associated with clothing, a couple's expressions. This is really a fascinating collection, original and well researched. As a genealogist, I find unidentified old photos to be so sad--like everyone, I have so many not-so-distant ancestors I have no photos of. Maybe they exist, with no names attached. Maybe they are in antique stores or listed on ebay.

I can't help but wonder if maybe, somehow, someone will read this book and identify someone. Based on another photo saved. Or a recognizable piece of jewelry. Or someone who passed on their features to a descendant.

[Jill · Rating 5 out of 5]

What an incredible book to start 2024. Patricia Smith's book of poetry pairs poems with nineteenth century photographs of unknown Black Americans- people who had been enslaved or whose parents were newly freed. Written in the first person, the poems tell imagined stories based in historic fact about the individuals- their fears, joys, loves- and also about our country's collective history. Many examined the impact of freedom and creating a new life after enslavement- the possibilities, the challenges, the regrets, the anger. The poems side-by-side with the faces of people who existed and experienced all of it generate both emotion and questions to grapple with. An amazing reading experience.

[Elizabeth · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.5 stars.

Unshuttered is a fascinating, beautiful, sometimes painful exploration of history through poetry. Poet Patricia Smith as accrued a massive collection of 19th century photographs of Black people, and has used some of those images in this ekphrastic work. Each picture featured has a complete poem to go with it, providing an imagined story to someone whose life story has been lost to time. The photographs are often stunning, and the poetry gives them a new life. The introduction from Smith helps provide some context. Overall, this is a great collection of poetry and a fascinating piece of history. Definitely recommended!

[Rolf · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love the idea behind this volume--Smith collected as many late 19th century photos of Black folks as she could find, and then just as we often fantasize of doing when we look at portraiture in museums, she imagined the back stories for the people in these photos, going off of their age, who is in the photo with them, their relative skin color (and what that implied about both their ancestry and their social hopes in the era of Jim Crow), the quality of their clothing, everything. It’s a lovely collection of the reflections and imagination of a Black poet exploring the richness of Black life in the late 19th century.

[Jennifer · Rating 3 out of 5]

Really great historical concept in creating a poem/story for each picture the author was able excavate of someone we don’t know from history but could maybe gauge from what was going on at the time in the town the person was from. I just still don’t really like reading poetry—this volume not being an exception, which is the reason for 3 stars. I do think that this is an illuminating historical book about people who often are not highlighted in history and is good for provoking conversation about the late 1800s in England and the whole U.S. in terms of freedoms, race, and religion.

[Gwendolyn · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this imaginative poetry collection. Using found (and unidentified) portrait-style photographs of Black men, women, and children from the 1800s, Smith imagines stories for them and creates poems in their voices. Smith uses clues like facial expressions and clothing to guess at what these people lived through and what they might be thinking while being photographed. I’ve never seen anything like this before, but reading these poems next to the photographs (which are reproduced in the book) was a powerful experience.

[Brooke · Rating 5 out of 5]

Painfully poignant and poetically precise

We see ghosts from eyes and realize the pain that seeps in ink from words breathed across generations. To read them here, we hear their relief as she gives them peace with every verse, like a curse lifted when it is exhumed to the light of day.

Read this. Sit with it. Read it again and listen. There is truth in this fiction, and they come alive, again.

[Kenneth Noguera · Rating 5 out of 5]

It took me a long while to finish this book because I wanted to truly understand and read through the poems that Smith has crafted. I am big fan of her work and bought this on preorder. What she does in this collection is fantastic. I will be revisiting these poems time and time again. I think for anyone this is a must read this year. Smith crafts poems that go back in time and give voice to these old photographs.

[Marie Polega · Rating 4 out of 5]

I’m not a typical reader of poetry, but I saw this poet live and was interested in her work so thought I’d get out of my comfort zone and try it. While I didn’t completely understand all the poems, I liked several of them. My favorite thing though is the concept of taking old photos and imaging a story about the people in them. Looking at the photos before and after reading the poems added so much to the experience, and many of the photos are just stunning.

[Jessica Young - Bangs · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love the use of the unidentified photos of African American slave descendents to tell stories of our broken and lost identities. These poems were so beautiful and emotional. I only had a hard time understanding some of them, which I feel was intentional to convey the message of loss or lack of understanding but because of this I was confused. That's the only reason I'm giving 4 stars instead of 5.

[Sarah · Rating 5 out of 5]

I do not hear enough people calling Patricia Smith one of our greatest American poets. Her name should be up there with Robert Frost and Gwendolyn Brooks--two other great poets with amazing formal chops. This is a master work. The care that went into finding and preserving these photographs alone. And the poems are so good. I read this slowly on purpose so I could really linger with the details in the images, the details in the stories Smith channeled, and the beauty of the language.

[Don · Rating 4 out of 5]

Releases 2/15/2023, I read an advanced reader copy. I don’t read a lot of poetry, although I like it, but this isn’t what I would call “traditional.” The author has collected hundreds of rare historic studio photographs of Black people and has paired them with poetic stories that are, at times, are as hard to read as the photos are to look at. The writings add depth to the images.

[Michael · Rating 5 out of 5]

I’m very glad I read these poems. They did build on each other. Each is a photograph, usually a photograph of one or more African-Americans on tin type. The author doesn’t know them or their stories (they are seemingly unknown to history) but she recovers history by telling the stories in poems that she sees rising above the tin type, above the flash, above the decks of ships. Beautiful.