One of the most magnetic and esteemed poets in today\'s literary landscape, Patricia Smith fearlessly confronts the tyranny against the black male body and the tenacious grief of mothers in her compelling new collection, Incendiary Art.
With Poems impossible to turn away from, one of America\'s most electrifying writers reveals what is frightening, and what is revelatory, about history..
Smith envisions, reenvisions, and ultimately reinvents the role of witness with an Incendiary fusion of forms, including prose poems, ghazals, sestinas, and sonnets.
It\'s how she / mourns--a mother, still, despite the roar of thorns"-- as she sharpens her unerring focus on incidents of national mayhem and mourning.
Her tiny hand starts crushing roses--one by one / by one she wrecks the casket\'s spray.
Smith embraces elaborate and eloquent language-- "her gorgeous fallen son a horrid hidden / rot.
These dynamic sequences serve as a backdrop for present-day racial calamities and calls for resistance.
She writes an exhaustive lament for mothers of the "dark magicians," and revisits the devastating murder of Emmett Till.
One of the most magnetic and esteemed poets in today\'s literary landscape, Patricia Smith fearlessly confronts the tyranny against the black male body and the tenacious grief of mothers in her compelling new collection, Incendiary Art
