{"product_id":"bluff-poems-9781644452981","title":"Bluff: Poems","description":"\u003cp\u003eWritten after two years of artistic silence, during which the world came to a halt due to the COVID-19 pandemic and Minneapolis became the epicenter of protest following the murder of George Floyd, \u003ci\u003eBluff\u003c\/i\u003e is Danez Smith's powerful reckoning with their role and responsibility as a poet and with their hometown of the Twin Cities. This is a book of awakening out of violence, guilt, shame, and critical pessimism to wonder and imagine how we can strive toward a new existence in a world that seems to be dissolving into desolate futures. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eSmith brings a startling urgency to these poems, their questions demanding a new language, a deep self-scrutiny, and virtuosic textual shapes. A series of ars poetica gives way to \"anti poetica\" and \"ars america\" to implicate poetry's collusions with unchecked capitalism. A photographic collage accrues across a sequence to make clear the consequences of America's acceptance of mass shootings. A brilliant long poem--part map, part annotation, part visual argument--offers the history of Saint Paul's vibrant Rondo neighborhood before and after officials decided to run an interstate directly through it. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003ci\u003eBluff \u003c\/i\u003eis a kind of manifesto about artistic resilience, even when time and will can seem fleeting, when the places we most love--those given and made--are burning. In this soaring collection, Smith turns to honesty, hope, rage, and imagination to envision futures that seem possible.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAbout the Author\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eDanez Smith\u003c\/b\u003e is the author of three previous poetry collections, including \u003ci\u003eHomie\u003c\/i\u003e, a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award, and \u003ci\u003eDon't Call Us Dead\u003c\/i\u003e, winner of the Forward Prize for Best Collection and a finalist for the National Book Award.\u003cbr\u003e","brand":"Graywolf Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":50875059634450,"sku":"9781644452981","price":12.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0831\/4771\/8930\/files\/img_bcdad52f-2cb5-41e3-9514-0802181b3f19.jpg?v=1738015667","url":"https:\/\/surprise-castle.myshopify.com\/products\/bluff-poems-9781644452981","provider":"Surprise Castle","version":"1.0","type":"link"}