Patricia Smith
Download MP3Today's show features Patricia Smith, whose The Intentions of Thunder: New and Selected Poems, won the National Book Award for Poetry last fall. It’s a tremendous book, gathering a generous selection of her previous nine volumes along with the new pieces.
Patricia Smith's previous books include Unshuttered; Incendiary Art, winner of the 2018 Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award and finalist for the 2018 Pulitzer Prize; Shoulda Been Jimi Savannah, winner of the Lenore Marshall Prize from the Academy of American Poets; and Blood Dazzler, a National Book Award finalist. Her work has appeared in The New Yorker, Poetry, The Paris Review, among many others, and in Best American Poetry and Best American Essays. She co-edited The Golden Shovel Anthology—New Poems Honoring Gwendolyn Brooks and edited the crime fiction anthology Staten Island Noir. Smith is a recipient of the Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize for Lifetime Achievement from the Poetry Foundation, an inductee of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, and Academy of American Poets Chancellor and a member of the Chicago Literary Hall of Fame. She is also a Guggenheim fellow, and a four-time individual champion of the National Poetry Slam, the most successful poet in the competition’s history.
Patricia Smith's previous books include Unshuttered; Incendiary Art, winner of the 2018 Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award and finalist for the 2018 Pulitzer Prize; Shoulda Been Jimi Savannah, winner of the Lenore Marshall Prize from the Academy of American Poets; and Blood Dazzler, a National Book Award finalist. Her work has appeared in The New Yorker, Poetry, The Paris Review, among many others, and in Best American Poetry and Best American Essays. She co-edited The Golden Shovel Anthology—New Poems Honoring Gwendolyn Brooks and edited the crime fiction anthology Staten Island Noir. Smith is a recipient of the Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize for Lifetime Achievement from the Poetry Foundation, an inductee of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, and Academy of American Poets Chancellor and a member of the Chicago Literary Hall of Fame. She is also a Guggenheim fellow, and a four-time individual champion of the National Poetry Slam, the most successful poet in the competition’s history.
A note of caution: Patricia Smith’s second reading contains language that may be difficult for some. Please use discretion.
Pick up a copy of The Intentions of Thunder here.
Read more about Smith here.
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Instagram: @drunkasapoetonpayday
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Creators and Guests
Host
Jason Gray
Jason Gray is the author of the poetry collections Radiation King and Photographing Eden. His poems and reviews have appeared in Poetry, Kenyon Review, Southern Review, Image, and elsewhere.
