The Intentions of Thunder: New and Selected Poems intentions_of_thunder.jpg

At 70 years old, poet Patricia Smith is writing some of the sharpest and most emotional work of her life as evidenced by The Intentions of Thunder: New and Selected Poems.

Smith’s first poetry collection was published in 1991 and drew on her experiences growing up in Chicago. From that work, she continued to craft poetry about the black community of which she was a part, and in the late 90s, she became a large part of the Slam poetry movement. This new book has roots in those beginnings and, in fact, includes, as the title suggests, selected poems from those earliest collections. It is the new work, however, that reveals the sharp insight and unparalleled precision with which Smith dissects the world in which we live.

Toward the latter part of the book, a three-part poem titled “Pandemics” perfectly captures Smith’s voice at this moment in time. “The virus is a flood of mercy’s absence,” she writes. Later in that poem, she interweaves the death of George Floyd and the reality of police brutality in America to make a larger statement about how we collectively respond to pain.

The Intentions of Thunder is, simply, a revelation.