'Patricia Smith is the greatest living poet. Every book is better than the last.' – Danez Smith, The Guardian
America's Patricia Smith is one of the most indispensable, groundbreaking voices in contemporary poetry, a 'masterful performer and poet of voices too little heard' (Poetry Foundation). The Intentions of Thunder gathers, for the first time, the essential work from across her career. With impassioned eloquence and a sharpened focus on incidents of national mayhem and mourning, these poems traverse the redeeming landscape of pain, confront the frightening revelations of history, and disclose the joyous possibilities of the future. The result is a profound testament to the necessity of poetry – all the careful witness, embodied experience and bristling pleasure that it bestows – and of Patricia Smith's necessary voice.
Lyrical, meditative and volcanic, The Intentions of Thunder stunningly explores the fullness of living, presenting a raptuous ode to life. Collections drawn upon include her Pulitzer finalist Incendiary Art – published by Bloodaxe in the UK – featuring her compelling chronicle of the devastating murder of Emmett Till, a backdrop for present-day racial calamities and calls for resistance.
'Smith, one of the greatest contemporary poets in America, has to be among the truest and clearest of [Gwendolyn] Brooks’ descendants. The great Patricia Smith extends the reach of Brooks.... Anyone looking for what’s truly exceptional in American poetry should look at the Black women poets.' – Terrance Hayes, Poetry Society Annual Lecture 2021
‘In Smith’s poetry, we can feel the heat of imagination fused with technical control; the artist’s “rage for order” combined with the elegist’s grief, and the activist’s rage for justice.’ – Carol Rumens, Poem of the Week, The Guardian
'Incendiary Art is unlike any contemporary poetry collection I’ve ever read. It hits you hard in the head, heart and guts. As its title suggests, it is incandescent with emotions that implode, rage and blaze on the page. In recent years, contemporary American poets such as Morgan Parker, Jericho Brown, Danez Smith and Claudia Rankine have written powerfully and radically about issues of race, gender and the body. In this new collection, Patricia Smith similarly confronts the racial violence systematically enacted against black lives as well as how such traumas are embodied and inherited in the twentieth- and twenty-first century. The effects are devastating and make for difficult but compelling reading.' - Jennifer Lee Tsai, The Poetry Review
'Incendiary Art is a substantial book of 129 pages. And there is not a single page which does not show an extraordinary, incandescent imagination...Smith’s concentration on the resonances of fatherhood and motherhood in this book give all this suffering a devastating, and inescapable relevance to all lives.' - Ian Pople, The Manchester Review
‘As with Smith’s previous books, one encounters an urgent voice on the page that is exuberant, sharp, and questing in its search for understanding of the fatalities that besiege black life in America. The imaginative qualities of these poems and others are what make them captivating. She is a poet of immense originality, and these poems are a testament to her powers.’ – Major Jackson
'Patricia Smith is a masterful poet, performer, and pundit. And while her chosen field is the form and grace of language, her gift to the world that orbits the Black experience is truth.' – Walter Mosley
'Her work is always timely, powerful, necessary, and at turns heartbreaking.' – Natasha Trethewey
'Exuberant, sharp, and questing in [her] search for understanding of the fatalities that besiege black life in America...a poet of immense originality.' – Major Jackson
'Patricia Smith's work is direct, colloquial, inclusive, adventuresome.' – Gwendolyn Brooks
'Patricia Smith writes poems full of risk and courage, thick with pain and alive with insight and humor… the gift she presents to us is truly, truly priceless.' – Kwame Dawes
'Patricia Smith is writing some of the best poetry in America today.' – Sapphire
Patricia Smith: Incendiary Art
Patricia Smith reads nine poems from Incendiary Art: ‘Incendiary Art’, ‘No Wound of Exit’, an extract from ‘Sagas of the Accidental Saint’ (‘That’s my son collapsed there…’), ‘Incendiary Art: Ferguson’, ’That Chile Emmett in That Casket’, ’The Mother Dares Make Love Again, After’, ’And He Stays Dead’, ’Incendiary Art: The Body’, and ‘Runaway’. Neil Astley filmed Patricia Smith reading from Incendiary Art in Ireland in April 2019 when she was in Galway for Cúirt International Festival of Literature.
Patricia Smith: That Chile Emmett in That Casket
Patricia Smith reads ’That Chile Emmett in That Casket’ from Incendiary Art.
Patricia Smith: Sagas of the Accidental Saint
Patricia Smith reads an extract from ’Sagas of the Accidental Saint’ from Incendiary Art.
Patricia Smith: Map Rappin’
Patricia Smith reads ‘Map Rappin’’ (for John Coltrane, and forever for Bruce) from Teahouse of the Almighty (Coffee House Press, Minneapolis, 2006). Neil Astley filmed her reading a selection of poems in Ireland in April 2019 when she was in Galway for Cúirt International Festival of Literature. All the other poems she read are from Incendiary Art: https://vimeo.com/330767418
Patricia Smith: Live in Newcastle
Patricia Smith gave a brilliant reading from Incendiary Art – followed by an interview with Bloodaxe editor Neil Astley – at NCLA (Newcastle Centre for the Literary Arts) on 18th October 2019.
Ireland & EU: Click here to order from Books Upstairs in Dublin
North America: Scribner
