Teahouse of the Almighty

Starred review from June 26, 2006
Smith appears to be that rarest of creatures, a charismatic slam and performance poet whose artistry truly survives on the printed page. Present at the creation of the slam in early-'80s Chicago and included in seminal films and anthologies, Smith (Big Towns, Big Talk
, 1992) receded from the scene in recent years after her career as a newspaper journalist ended in scandal. This National Poetry Series–winning volume marks a triumphal return, showing an energetic writer with four urgent subjects. She depicts endangered children. She celebrates sex and sexuality, from the public display of celebrities to the power of the female orgasm: "Don't hate me because I'm multiple." She considers the heritage of black American art, in musical performance and in writing. Finally, she describes the experience of performance itself, with all its pride and embarrassment: "Angry, jubilant, weeping poets... we are all/ saviors, reluctant hosannas in the limelight." Several poems also animate the troubled lives of famous blues singers; elsewhere, a mother considers how her incarcerated son became a "jailhouse scribe." A superb variety of lines and forms—short and long, hesitant and rapid-fire—gives the book additional depth. Smith even offers fine advice: "Breathe/ like your living depends on it."

July 1, 2006
Proper nouns -Smith ("Slamnation") calls them -mouthful nouns - -arresting verbs, and striking metaphors crack like lightning in the free verse poems in Smith's new collection. With their feminist leanings, their Biblical allusions, and their many references to newspaper articles, these performance poems place violence beside passion, love, lust, nature, and religion. Creating a stunning mix of sound and sense, the best poems become a metaphor for the power of poetry. A poem like -Stop the Presses, - for example, describes the role poetry plays in peoples' lives and becomes the poem playing that role: -My job is sexy leads for the bones clattering in your closet? - Propelled by figures of sound -especially rhythm, rhyme, and repetition -the poems almost demand to be spoken aloud. Smith lets words fall purposely from the tongue, as in these lines: -Lakinishia, Fumilayo, Chevellanie, Delayo -their ragged rebellions and lip-glossed pouts, and all those pants drooped as drapery?. - Blending feather-wisp feelings with knife-sharp ghetto talk, the poems mightily fuse Walt Whitman's -barbaric yawp, - with the blues. Suitable for all libraries." -Diane Scharper, Towson Univ., MD"

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