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Teahouse of the Almighty
Poems by Patricia Smith
Reviews
National Poetry Series winner, chosen by Edward Sanders
Paterson Poetry Prize Winner
Hurston/Wright Legacy Award Winner
Judge’s statement for the Paterson Poetry Prize:
“Patricia Smith’s Teahouse of the Almighty is an unforgettable book by a brilliant poet who looks at the world with an unflinching eye.”
Edward Sanders, National Poetry Series judge:
“Teahouse of the Almighty is searing, honest, well-crafted, and full of the real world transformed by Patricia Smith's fine ear for nuance and the shaking of the soul's duties. I was weeping for the beauty of poetry when I reached the end of the final poem.”
Entertainment Weekly:
“Dazzling. . . . Smith approaches the themes of love, family, and violence through accessible, graceful language and often praises her subjects with a simple ‘hallelujah.’”
World Literature Today:
“From the soul-shattering drama of everyday life evident in news headlines to the liberating and uplifting power of poetry. . . . Smith’s pieces are underscored by a reverence for the raw drama and passion of human existence. . . . Vibrant and passionate.”
Bloomsbury Review:
“Best known as a champion poetry slammer, Patricia Smith has become one of the most important voices in the more complex window of ‘poems on the page.’ . . . Her poems instill a need in the reader that can only be met by the next poem.”
Publishers Weekly (starred review):
“Smith appears to be that rarest of creatures, a charismatic slam and performance poet whose artistry truly survives on the printed page. . . . This National Poetry Series-winning volume marks [her] triumphal return.”
Bloomsbury Review:
“Dynamic . . . sublimely captures the thrills and dilemmas of the human experience.”
Magill Book Review:
“Powerful poems that almost perform themselves on the page . . . filled not only with solid emotion but with speaking imagery and singing diction.”
ForeWord:
“Smith demonstrates that the ‘page-versus-stage’ debate finds reconciliation in the right hands. Even read silently, her work still sings.”
Library Journal:
“Blending feather-wisp feelings with knife-sharp ghetto talk, [Smith’s] poems mightily fuse Walt Whitman’s ‘barbaric yawp,’ with the blues.”
Women in the Arts:
“Captures the immediacy of stage performance with a bold, streetwise voice.”
Dragonfire:
“A generous book, comprised of poems that are always clever, sometimes funny, and consistently, unceasingly real, which is to say, grounded in human experience. . . . As Smith translates the delirium of the everyday, she creates poems that are anything but ordinary.”
Rambles:
“A powerful book that ought to be widely read, aloud and often.”
Stephanie Hollmichel, So Many Books:
“Not only are [Smith’s] poems well written, but they have that revolutionary something that adds a perfect spice, making the poems seem somehow more.”
Elizabeth Alexander:
“These poems are so fierce and tender, so unflinching, so loud and exquisite, so carefully crafted, so important, so right-on. They can make you gasp, rage, weep, belly-laugh, throw your arms open to them and the worlds they contain, push away or punch at the wrongs they chronicle. They bear such terrible beauty. Brava to Miss Patricia Smith, who pulls poems from the center of the earth.”
Marvin Bell:
“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.”
Kwame Dawes:
“Not many poets will make you laugh out loud, grow uneasily warm with the recognition of self, sit riveted by the sheer shock of contending with human suffering, and feel as if you are alone with her as she tells her stories. But not many poets are Patricia Smith and not many books are as delightful and moving as her splendid Teahouse of the Almighty. Her secret is an absolute comfort in her own voice—her poems arrive with assurance and force.”
Stephen Dobyns:
“Patricia Smith is a powerful poet whose work gets stronger with each book. She will knock your socks off.”
Thomas Lux:
“Patricia Smith is a buzz saw of a poet—she has more poetry in any one of her poems than most poets have in a whole book! Her urgent, unquiet voice is necessary.”
Also available by this author:
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