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OverviewA searing new collection from the Forward prizewinning American poet with a devoted online and international following 'A writer who never loses their way' New York Times A searing new collection from the Forward Prize-winning American poet about the year that the world's gaze turned to Minneapolis - Smith's own home. Written after two years of artistic silence, during which the world came to a halt due to the COVID-19 pandemic and Minneapolis became the epicentre of protest following the murder of George Floyd, Bluff is Danez Smith's powerful reckoning with their role and responsibility as a poet and with their hometown. This is a book of awakening out of violence, guilt, shame and critical pessimism to imagine how we can strive towards a new existence in a world that seems to be dissolving into desolate futures. Smith brings a startling urgency to these poems, their questions demanding a new language, a deep self-scrutiny and virtuosic textual shapes. A series of ars poetica gives way to 'anti poetica' and 'ars america' to implicate poetry's collusions with unchecked capitalism. A brilliant long poem maps the history of Minneapolis-Saint Paul's vibrant Rondo neighbourhood before and after officials decided to run an interstate directly through it. Bluff is a manifesto about artistic resilience when the places we most love - those given and made - are burning. In this collection, Smith turns to honesty, hope, rage and imagination to envision futures that seem possible. 'A poet of exceptional linguistic exuberance, style and grace' Kayo Chingonyi 'Smith writes towards the abundant and the difficult and makes something that is rare - a piece of art that refuses self-consciousness and is exactly what it wants to be' Raven Leilani on Homie Full Product DetailsAuthor: Danez SmithPublisher: Vintage Publishing Imprint: Chatto & Windus Dimensions: Width: 17.70cm , Height: 1.20cm , Length: 22.60cm Weight: 0.228kg ISBN: 9781784745738ISBN 10: 1784745731 Pages: 160 Publication Date: 22 August 2024 Audience: General/trade , General Format: Paperback Publisher's Status: Active Availability: Not yet available This item is yet to be released. You can pre-order this item and we will dispatch it to you upon its release. Table of ContentsReviews'In this latest collection Smith returns to examinations of racism, of its insidious violence, and of resistance to it. But this new work also strikingly explores the idea of the poet’s culpability, about how we write about injustices without profiting from them, either financially or in deeper cultural terms. There is an honesty in the work that is at times overwhelming, a book too hot to touch. This is Smith’s gift, this search for a sense of truth - or even justice - in a world without much of either. Inventive, restless, awe struck, and grieving, Smith pushes language and sonics like no other poet. In their steepled hands, poems become prayers to a god we are afraid to look at. It might be too early to declare, but I don't think so. Bluff is my book of the year. Absolutely breathtaking' * Joelle Taylor, author of C+nto & Othered Poems * 'Bluff is a gripping collection that breaks the fourth wall. It is cathartic in its outpouring, inviting the reader to join, and be present. It’s as though the world is a scattered puzzle that Danez analyses and bears witness to. A reality, a mourning, an abstractness in making sense of, and motions to piece together’ * Yomi Sode, author of Manorism * Author InformationDanez Smith is the author of Homie (2020) and Don't Call Us Dead (2018), which won the Forward Prize for Best Collection, the Four Quartets Prize awarded by the Poetry Society of America and was a finalist for the National Book Award. They live in Minneapolis. Tab Content 6Author Website:Countries AvailableAll regions |