American Smooth: Poems

by Rita Dove

Book Overview

An occasion to celebrate: a new collection by the Pulitzer Prize-winning former poet laureate; her first since On the Bus with Rosa Parks. With the grace of an Astaire, Rita Dove's magnificent poems pay homage to our kaleidoscopic cultural heritage; from the glorious shimmer of an operatic soprano to Bessie Smith's mournful wail; from paradise lost to angel food cake; from hotshots at the local shooting range to the Negro jazz band in World War I...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0393327442
• ISBN13: 9780393327441
• Release Date: February 2006
• Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
• Length: 144 Pages
• Weight: 0.05 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.4" x 5.6" x 8.2"

Customer Reviews

No wonder she was Poet Laureate!

If ever there were the slightest doubt as to why Rita Dove is a former Poet Laureate, a Pulitzer Prize winner, and lots of other great things for a poet (particularly a poet these days!) to be, AMERICAN SMOOTH squelches that doubt like a bug at a barbecue. Whether she's writing of Negro doughboys in World War One as they face the issue of Race, along with the other horrors of war, or Salome or Saint Valentine, her pen celebrates her subject with subtle wit and with the incising scalpel-like insight which is the core of the Poet's craft. For this reviewer, the best poems here are those that deal with jazz and dance themes and skillfully utilize those rhythms. The poem about Hattie McDaniel (Mammy from Gone with the Wind) going to her Oscar party is also an absolute delight. Dove's exquisite and perspicacious wit also shines in her selection of quotes from Star Trek: Voyager's clever and charming Vulcan, Tuvok as section epigraphs. While Dove's voice is her own, careful listening and reading will reveal echoes of Denise Levertov, Adrienne Rich, and William Carlos Williams.

The Sweetest Word

Rita Dove is a highly acclaimed poet and a former Poet Laureate of the United States with many accolades and honors. Her latest publication, AMERICAN SMOOTH, is a collection of forty-four poems infused with the history of World War I, the enjoyment of dancing, and issues of everyday life. My favorite selections are "Meditation at Fifty Yards, Moving Target", which makes shooting a gun sound so poetic and "Heart to Heart" which downplays the myths one associates with the heart (shape and color), and all the cliches individuals use in terms of it (from the bottom of my heart), and breaks down what it really is (muscle) and what people need to keep it going (love). Although I was not able to enjoy the collection in it's entirety, I enjoyed several of the poetic offerings similar to those mentioned above. Those that I did not identify with were well written, its just that I was not able to relate to those pieces, but that is the beauty of poetry, there is something for everyone. Reviewed by Aiesha Flowers of The RAWSISTAZ Reviewers

Thrilling Collection

Dove's keen, deliberate voice in "American Smooth" is as brilliant as ever. In each poem, the gut-true, but never easy, illuminations of individual subject become gorgeous music. Dove masterfully evokes specific moments of joy and disappointment, beauty and carelessness, honor and neglect. The title, "American Smooth" refers, in part, to a form of ballroom dancing. These poems are just as lean and graceful and sophisticated as any great dancer's best moves. I want to go everywhere Rita Dove's work leads, because when I come back, I'm never quite the same.