A National Poetry Series winner, chosen by Edward Sanders.
What power. Smith s poetry is all poetry. And visceral. Her poems get under the skin of their subjects. Their passion and empathy, their real worldliness, are blockbuster. Marvin Bell
I was weeping for the beauty of poetry when I reached the end of the final poem. Edward Sanders, National Poetry Series judge
From Lollapalooza to Carnegie Hall, Patricia Smith has taken the stage as this nation s premier performance poet. Featured in the film Slamnation and on the HBO series Def Poetry Jam, Smith is back with her first book in over a decade a National Poetry Series winner weaving passionate, bluesy narratives into an empowering, finely tuned cele-bration of poetry s liberating power.