{"product_id":"wade-in-the-water-poems-9781555978365","title":"Wade in the Water: Poems","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eShortlisted for the T. S. Eliot Prize\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eFinalist for the Forward Prize for Best Collection\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe extraordinary new poetry collection by Tracy K. Smith, the Poet Laureate of the United States\u003c\/b\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eEven the men in black armor, the ones\u003cbr\u003eJangling handcuffs and keys, what else \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eAre they so buffered against, if not love's blade\u003cbr\u003eSizing up the heart's familiar meat? \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eWe watch and grieve. We sleep, stir, eat.\u003cbr\u003eLove: the heart sliced open, gutted, clean. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eLove: naked almost in the everlasting street, \u003cbr\u003eSkirt lifted by a different kind of breeze. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e--from \"Unrest in Baton Rouge\" \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eIn \u003ci\u003eWade in the Water\u003c\/i\u003e, Tracy K. Smith boldly ties America's contemporary moment both to our nation's fraught founding history and to a sense of the spirit, the everlasting. These are poems of sliding scale: some capture a flicker of song or memory; some collage an array of documents and voices; and some push past the known world into the haunted, the holy. Smith's signature voice--inquisitive, lyrical, and wry--turns over what it means to be a citizen, a mother, and an artist in a culture arbitrated by wealth, men, and violence. Here, private utterance becomes part of a larger choral arrangement as the collection widens to include erasures of \u003ci\u003eThe Declaration of Independence\u003c\/i\u003e and the correspondence between slave owners, a found poem comprised of evidence of corporate pollution and accounts of near-death experiences, a sequence of letters written by African Americans enlisted in the Civil War, and the survivors' reports of recent immigrants and refugees. \u003ci\u003eWade in the Water\u003c\/i\u003e is a potent and luminous book by one of America's essential poets.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAbout the Author\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eTracy K. Smith\u003c\/b\u003e is the author of three previous poetry collections, including \u003ci\u003eLife on Mars\u003c\/i\u003e, winner of the Pulitzer Prize, and a memoir, \u003ci\u003eOrdinary Light\u003c\/i\u003e, which was a finalist for the National Book Award. She teaches at Princeton University.\u003cbr\u003e","brand":"Graywolf Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":50621047341330,"sku":"9781555978365","price":12.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0831\/4771\/8930\/files\/img_5f370b22-af14-4045-9504-85fef3a4dedc.jpg?v=1732579698","url":"https:\/\/surprise-castle.myshopify.com\/products\/wade-in-the-water-poems-9781555978365","provider":"Surprise Castle","version":"1.0","type":"link"}