Intentions of Thunder

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 rapturous 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. Poetry Book Society Special Commendation.

Patricia Smith is the author of ten books of poetry, including The Intentions of Thunder: New and Selected Poems (Scribner, USA, 2025; Bloodaxe Books, UK, 2026), a Poetry Book Society Special Commendation. This draws upon previous collections including Unshuttered (2023); Incendiary Art (Triquarterly, USA, 2017; Bloodaxe Books, UK, 2019), winner of the 2018 Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award, the 2017 Los Angeles Times Book Prize and the 2018 NAACP Image Award, and a finalist for the 2018 Pulitzer Prize; Shoulda Been Jimi Savannah (2012), winner of the Lenore Marshall Prize from the Academy of American Poets; Blood Dazzler (2008), a National Book Award finalist; Teahouse of the Almighty (2006); Close to Death (1993); Big Towns Big Talk (1992); and Life According to Motown (1991). Her other books include Gotta Go, Gotta Flow, a collaboration with award-winning Chicago photographer Michael Abramson; the children's book Janna and the Kings and the history Africans in America, a companion book to the award-winning PBS series. She co-edited The Golden Shovel Anthology – New Poems Honoring Gwendolyn Brooks and edited the crime fiction anthology Staten Island Noir. She is a Guggenheim fellow, a Civitellian, a National Endowment for the Arts grant recipient, a finalist for the Neustadt Prize, a two-time winner of the Pushcart Prize, a former fellow at both Yaddo and the MacDowell Colony, and a four-time individual champion of the National Poetry Slam, the most successful poet in the competition’s history. Patricia is a professor at the College of Staten Island and in the MFA program at Sierra Nevada College, as well as an instructor at the annual VONA residency and in the Vermont College of Fine Arts Postgraduate Residency Program. Patricia Smith was the subject of the BBC Radio 4 feature Patricia Smith: Gwendolyn's Heir broadcast in 2020.