And the Book of the Year? Folks, may I direct your attention to Ms. Patricia Smith’s Teahouse of the Almighty (Coffeehouse Press), the work of a woman who clobbered the world as a young poet. During the late 80s and early 90s she was four-time National Poetry Slam Champion, and published three books in three years: Life According to Motown (1991, Tia Chucha Press), Big Towns, Big Talk (1992, Zoland Books), and Close to Death (1993, Zoland Books). The books came fast, hot and totally terrific, and included signature poems like “Skinhead” (imagine hearing a poem told by a young Black woman in the guise of a racist skinhead) and “Undertaker” (another persona poem, this time he who fixes the bodies for viewing in the hood, “I reach into collapsed cavities to rescue / a tongue, an ear”). Her most recent book was 13 years ago, but the wait was worth it. Selected by Ed Sanders (“I was weeping for the beauty of poetry when I reached the end of the final poem”) as the Coffee House National Poetry Series winner, Teahouse not only includes poems every bit as powerful as the signature early pieces (“Building Nicole’s Mama,” “Map Rappin’,” “When the Burning Begins”), but goes more places, covers more distance, takes more audacious risks than ever. The miracle is that these moves are not recklessness but full of maturity and a glowing confidence that dares the reader to look any other way than direct -- why, Patricia’s there, too! Since her early books, Patricia Smith has lived it all -- career destructo, marriage wrecked, son in jail, a slam scene that seems to eat its young -- and not survived but thrived -- she’s raising her grandchild, remarried, and breaking solidly into the academy. Often in this book, she evokes St. Gwendolyn Brooks, another Chicago poet who always told it like it is, whose power was the humanity of power. And now it can be said: Patricia Smith is our Gwendolyn Brooks, inspiring and firing up everywhere she goes, this book putting to rest forever the question of “great performer, but on the page?” Teahouse of the Almighty is simply great poetry, and a testament to who Patricia Smith is, where she’s been. It’s the sign we’ve been waiting for, the Book of the Year.
Two of last year’s faves have come up with new books I must recommend. Eliot Weinberger’s What Happened Here: The Bush Chronicles (New Directions, 2005) is still the best Iraq expose I know of and has been dramatized in the US and England. His sweet little book Muhammad (Verso) makes the same points in all the opposite ways: here is the life of the founder of the religion the West has totally demonized, told so beautifully it feels like it’s sung. Concocted from a variety of historical sources, this is a gorgeous stocking-stuffer of a book, all true and all human. Weinberger is my kind of intellectual -- his curiosity leads him everywhere, his writing is a map of consciousness.
Last year Marvin X released his magnum opus, Land of My Daughters: Poems 1995-2005 (Black Bird Press), poems that put me in mind of Mawlânâ Jalâl ad-Dîn Muhammad Rûmî. He just published Beyond Religion Towards Spirituality, Essays on Consciousness (Black Bird Press, 2006), and all I can say, folks, is this is the Bible of the Hood and is bound to stir up plenty of opposition -- and maybe even cut through the BS to move towards Good. “Imagine we are the generation of Parker, Coltrane, Dolphy, Monk, Duke, Bessie, Lady Day, Ella, Sarah, what on earth can follow us but the earth shaking children of tomorrow... who will smash the atmosphere with sounds...” “If the mate leaves, we should be happy. Why would you want to keep someone who wants to go? If she wants to be with Joe, let her go -- you don’t own her. If she wants, she has the human right to give Joe some p****. I know you don’t like it but get over it. Don’t kill her and Joe behind the funk. The world is full of infinite possibilities. God will provide wou with the perfect mate... Let go and Let God.”
