Patricia Smith's Blood Dazzler

I am reading Patricia Smith's Blood Dazzler, a finalist for the 2008 National Book Award. These poems tell the story of New Orleans before, during, and after Katrina.

Personally, I've found it difficult to write "political" poems (or poems that address social concerns...which raises the question what constitutes a political poem for can't every poem be considered a political poem in some sense [i.e., the personal is political]...but that's for another post perhaps). For me it is all too easy to fall into rant or lecture mode, to lose the essence of the poem.

Smith's poems are what political poems should be because first they are poems. They are musical. They are crafted (I mean this in a positive way; I mean she has considered structure carefully so the form suits the poem). They are filled with hard evidence (singular images, convincing voices). And through these means, the poems take on the weighty topic of Katrina. She has made poems that balance beauty and substance.

Here you can listen to Smith read three poems (the third, "What Betsy Has to Say," is from Blood Dazzler).