The Intentions of Thunder
New and Selected Poems
Published on 21. May 2026
Book
Paperback/Softback
352 pages
978-1-78037-791-9 (ISBN)
Description
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.
Reviews / Votes
Patricia Smith is the greatest living poet. Every book is better than the last. -- Danez Smith * The Guardian * Smith, one of the greatest contemporary poets in America, has to be among the truest and clearest of [Gwendolyn] Brooks' descendants. The great Patricia Smith extends the reach of Brooks.... Anyone looking for what's truly exceptional in American poetry should look at the Black women poets -- Terrance Hayes * Poetry Society Annual Lecture 2021 * Incendiary Art is unlike any contemporary poetry collection I've ever read. It hits you hard in the head, heart and guts. As its title suggests, it is incandescent with emotions that implode, rage and blaze on the page. In recent years, contemporary American poets such as Morgan Parker, Jericho Brown, Danez Smith and Claudia Rankine have written powerfully and radically about issues of race, gender and the body. In this new collection, Patricia Smith similarly confronts the racial violence systematically enacted against black lives as well as how such traumas are embodied and inherited in the twentieth- and twenty-first century. The effects are devastating and make for difficult but compelling reading. -- Jennifer Lee Tsai * The Poetry Review *More details
Edition
Paperback original
Language
English
Place of publication
Tyne and Wear
United Kingdom
Product notice
Paperback (UK-trade)
Dimensions
Height: 224 mm
Width: 135 mm
Thickness: 29 mm
Weight
548 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-78037-791-9 (9781780377919)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Person
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.
Content
Life According to Motown (1991)
What It's Like to Be a Black Girl (For Those of You Who Aren't) 3
Medusa 4
Your Man 6
The Awakening 8
Sweet Daddy 10
Big Towns, Big Talk (1992)
Annie Pearl Smith Discovers Moonlight 15
Doin' the Louvre 18
Biting Back 21
The Architect 23
Skinhead 25
In the Ultimate Blues Bar 28
Olive Oyl Talks to People Magazine 31
Chinese Cucumbers 36
Close to Death (1993)
Edward or Edwin 41
Terrell's Take on Things 44
Daddy Braids My Hair 1962 46
The Room with the Star 48
Undertaker 51
A Poem for the Man Who Shot My Father 54
The Dark Magicians 56
In His Room. With Him Gone. 57
Spinning 'Til You Get Dizzy 58
A Found Poem 61
Reconstruction 62
Teahouse of the Almighty (2006)
Building Nicole's Mama 65
Giving Birth to Soldiers 68
The World Won't Wait 69
Listening at the Door 70
My Million Fathers, Still Here Past 71
How to Be a Lecherous Lile Old Black Man and Make Lots of Money 73
Map Rappin' 74
Scribe 78
What You Pray Toward 81
Dream Dead Daddy Walking 83
Teahouse of the Almighty 84
Running for Aretha 86
When the Burning Begins 88
Blood Dazzler (2008)
Prologue-And Then She Owns You 93
5 p.m., Tuesday, August 23, 2005 95
11 a.m., Wednesday, August 24, 2005 96
5 p.m., Thursday, August 25, 2005 97
7 p.m., Thursday, August 25, 2005 98
Man on the TV Say 99
Won't Be but a Minute 100
8 a.m., Sunday, August 28, 2005 101
The Dawn of Luther B's Best Day 102
10:30 a.m., Sunday, August 28, 2005 103
Luther B Rides Out the Storm 104
What to Tweak 105
The President Flies Over 109
Tankas 110
Ethel's Sestina 112
34 114
Buried 122
Luther B Ascends 124
Siblings 125
Uncollected 1990-2010
First Time Trying to Say Where My Son Was 129
The Blood Sonnets 134
It Creeps Back In 136
The Episode Where Daddy Dies-but, Again, Doesn't 137
To the Woman, Not Trying to Fly, Who Fell with Her Legs Closed, Arms Pressed Against the Front of Her Body, While Primly Clutching Her Purse 139
Man, Roll the Window Down! 141
Post-Racial 143
Second Time Trying to Say Where My Son Was 144
Shoulda Been Jimi Savannah (2012)
How Mamas Begin Sometimes 151
Still Life with Toothpick 152
Keep Saying Heaven and It Will 153
Fixing on the Next Star 154
Annie Pearl, Upward 155
Shoulda Been Jimi Savannah 157
A Colored Girl Will Slice You If You Talk Wrong About Motown 159
Tavern. Tavern. Church. Shu!ered tavern, 161
An All-Purpose Product 163
Because 166
To Keep from Saying Dead 168
13 Ways of Looking at 13 171
Hip-Hop Ghazal 177
Thief of Tongues 178
Motown Crown 181
Incendiary Art (2017)
That Chile Emmett in That Casket 191
Incendiary Art 193
Emme! Till: Choose Your Own Adventure 194
Incendiary Art: Birmingham, 1963 195
Emme! Till: Choose Your Own Adventure 196
Hey, who you got in here? 197
Incendiary Art: Los Angeles, 1992 199
Black, Poured Directly into the Wound 201
Mammy Two-Shoes, Rightful Owner of Tom, Addresses the Lady of the House 203
Incendiary Art: Ferguson, 2014 206
XXXL 208
Emmett Till: Choose Your Own Adventure 209
The Five Stages of Drowning 210
When Black Men Drown Their Daughters 216
Blurred Quotient and Theory 218
Sagas of the Accidental Saint 220
The First 23 Minutes of the First Day Without 256
And He Stays Dead 257
Emmett Till: Choose Your Own Adventure 258
Incendiary Art: The Body 259
Unshuttered (2023)
1 263
4 265
8 267
13 269
15 271
16 273
31 275
34 277
42 279
Unshuttered 280
Uncollected 2010-2024
Double Shovel on a Line from MLK's "Letter from a Birmingham Jail" 285
How to Find a Missing Black Woman 287
Letter from Walpole 289
Nap Unleashed 294
Pandemics 301
Practice Standing Unleashed and Clean 303
The Price of the End of It 305
Salutations in Search Of 307
The Storefronts Wore Their Names 314
The Stuff of Astounding 321
To Little Black Girls, Risking Flower 323
What Daughters Come Down To 325
70
70 329
Scars Poetica 332
Acknowledgements 335
What It's Like to Be a Black Girl (For Those of You Who Aren't) 3
Medusa 4
Your Man 6
The Awakening 8
Sweet Daddy 10
Big Towns, Big Talk (1992)
Annie Pearl Smith Discovers Moonlight 15
Doin' the Louvre 18
Biting Back 21
The Architect 23
Skinhead 25
In the Ultimate Blues Bar 28
Olive Oyl Talks to People Magazine 31
Chinese Cucumbers 36
Close to Death (1993)
Edward or Edwin 41
Terrell's Take on Things 44
Daddy Braids My Hair 1962 46
The Room with the Star 48
Undertaker 51
A Poem for the Man Who Shot My Father 54
The Dark Magicians 56
In His Room. With Him Gone. 57
Spinning 'Til You Get Dizzy 58
A Found Poem 61
Reconstruction 62
Teahouse of the Almighty (2006)
Building Nicole's Mama 65
Giving Birth to Soldiers 68
The World Won't Wait 69
Listening at the Door 70
My Million Fathers, Still Here Past 71
How to Be a Lecherous Lile Old Black Man and Make Lots of Money 73
Map Rappin' 74
Scribe 78
What You Pray Toward 81
Dream Dead Daddy Walking 83
Teahouse of the Almighty 84
Running for Aretha 86
When the Burning Begins 88
Blood Dazzler (2008)
Prologue-And Then She Owns You 93
5 p.m., Tuesday, August 23, 2005 95
11 a.m., Wednesday, August 24, 2005 96
5 p.m., Thursday, August 25, 2005 97
7 p.m., Thursday, August 25, 2005 98
Man on the TV Say 99
Won't Be but a Minute 100
8 a.m., Sunday, August 28, 2005 101
The Dawn of Luther B's Best Day 102
10:30 a.m., Sunday, August 28, 2005 103
Luther B Rides Out the Storm 104
What to Tweak 105
The President Flies Over 109
Tankas 110
Ethel's Sestina 112
34 114
Buried 122
Luther B Ascends 124
Siblings 125
Uncollected 1990-2010
First Time Trying to Say Where My Son Was 129
The Blood Sonnets 134
It Creeps Back In 136
The Episode Where Daddy Dies-but, Again, Doesn't 137
To the Woman, Not Trying to Fly, Who Fell with Her Legs Closed, Arms Pressed Against the Front of Her Body, While Primly Clutching Her Purse 139
Man, Roll the Window Down! 141
Post-Racial 143
Second Time Trying to Say Where My Son Was 144
Shoulda Been Jimi Savannah (2012)
How Mamas Begin Sometimes 151
Still Life with Toothpick 152
Keep Saying Heaven and It Will 153
Fixing on the Next Star 154
Annie Pearl, Upward 155
Shoulda Been Jimi Savannah 157
A Colored Girl Will Slice You If You Talk Wrong About Motown 159
Tavern. Tavern. Church. Shu!ered tavern, 161
An All-Purpose Product 163
Because 166
To Keep from Saying Dead 168
13 Ways of Looking at 13 171
Hip-Hop Ghazal 177
Thief of Tongues 178
Motown Crown 181
Incendiary Art (2017)
That Chile Emmett in That Casket 191
Incendiary Art 193
Emme! Till: Choose Your Own Adventure 194
Incendiary Art: Birmingham, 1963 195
Emme! Till: Choose Your Own Adventure 196
Hey, who you got in here? 197
Incendiary Art: Los Angeles, 1992 199
Black, Poured Directly into the Wound 201
Mammy Two-Shoes, Rightful Owner of Tom, Addresses the Lady of the House 203
Incendiary Art: Ferguson, 2014 206
XXXL 208
Emmett Till: Choose Your Own Adventure 209
The Five Stages of Drowning 210
When Black Men Drown Their Daughters 216
Blurred Quotient and Theory 218
Sagas of the Accidental Saint 220
The First 23 Minutes of the First Day Without 256
And He Stays Dead 257
Emmett Till: Choose Your Own Adventure 258
Incendiary Art: The Body 259
Unshuttered (2023)
1 263
4 265
8 267
13 269
15 271
16 273
31 275
34 277
42 279
Unshuttered 280
Uncollected 2010-2024
Double Shovel on a Line from MLK's "Letter from a Birmingham Jail" 285
How to Find a Missing Black Woman 287
Letter from Walpole 289
Nap Unleashed 294
Pandemics 301
Practice Standing Unleashed and Clean 303
The Price of the End of It 305
Salutations in Search Of 307
The Storefronts Wore Their Names 314
The Stuff of Astounding 321
To Little Black Girls, Risking Flower 323
What Daughters Come Down To 325
70
70 329
Scars Poetica 332
Acknowledgements 335