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A review by book_casey
Bluff: Poems by Danez Smith
challenging
emotional
funny
hopeful
inspiring
reflective
sad
slow-paced
4.5
The poetry of @danez_smif has been on my shelves and in my heart for several years, and their latest collection #Bluff is an incredible addition to the canon. I heard about their break from writing (or at least from publishing) as they recalibrated what it meant to be who they are in this time and place. That discernment really shows in the work they’ve shared with us.
Something really specific to Danez that I am floored by every time is the creativity and innovation of form and design in the poems themselves. If you haven’t seen them printed on paper—or, in this case, scanned the QR code for “Metro” and been taken to a digital version because it didn’t fit in print in the way they imagined! What a gift!—there are literal layers to their genius. The piles of words (like in “more hope”) and the relentlessness of them (like in “the end of guns”) defies my ability to explain them.
Get your hands on this collection for the aforementioned, as well as “rondo” and “poem” and “Two Deer in a Southside Cemetery” and whichever of their words will be most moving for you. There is a lot in here that’s tough to stomach, but we are lucky to be alive at the same time as someone so committed to writing us through it.
Something really specific to Danez that I am floored by every time is the creativity and innovation of form and design in the poems themselves. If you haven’t seen them printed on paper—or, in this case, scanned the QR code for “Metro” and been taken to a digital version because it didn’t fit in print in the way they imagined! What a gift!—there are literal layers to their genius. The piles of words (like in “more hope”) and the relentlessness of them (like in “the end of guns”) defies my ability to explain them.
Get your hands on this collection for the aforementioned, as well as “rondo” and “poem” and “Two Deer in a Southside Cemetery” and whichever of their words will be most moving for you. There is a lot in here that’s tough to stomach, but we are lucky to be alive at the same time as someone so committed to writing us through it.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death, Gun violence, Physical abuse, Racism, Rape, Sexual assault, Slavery, Violence, Police brutality, Grief, and Mass/school shootings