Close to Death: Poems

by Patricia Smith

Homicide, drug abuse, and AIDS-related deaths have forced black male life expectancy into a steady decline. In New York City, black males have long been considered expendable. Young men who feel they have run out of options, whose bravado indicates they are no longer afraid to die, wear baseball caps emblazoned with C2D, for close to death. This chilling cry comes from those who expect to lose their lives violently without ever having a chance to...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0944072356
• ISBN13: 9780944072356
• Release Date: June 1998
• Publisher: Steerforth Press
• Length: 128 Pages
• Weight: 0.45 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.4" x 6.1" x 8.2"

Customer Reviews

Eloquent and Hard-hitting

This book of poetry by one of the best Slam poets has a way of shaking the complacency of so much that passes for poetry, from stale imitators of the Beats to the constipated stasis of High-Modernists. Smith's eminence in the Academy of American Poets is well earned; her verse delivers, and will never disappoint.

another spoken word diva

first saw her read at the gathering of poets festival at louisiana state university at baton rouge many years ago..she recited her stuff from memory without a mike and just came at the audience hard...some of her poems read like stories..her voice can be soft as rose petals or echo the throb of african drums...also get her book life according to motown