Description

A searing new collection from the Forward Prize-winning American poet about the year 2020, the year that the world’s gaze turned to Minneapolis – Smith’s own home.

‘Bluff is my book of the year. Absolutely breathtaking’ Joelle Taylor, author of C+NTO: + Othered Poems

‘You will want to underline almost every line … One of the best books of poetry I’ve read: buy it for anyone you love’ Hollie McNish, author of Plum

‘Gripping … It’s as though the world is a scattered puzzle that Danez analyses and bears witness to’ Yomi Sode, author of Manorism

Written during the time the world came to a halt due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and Minneapolis became the epicentre of protest following the murder of George Floyd, Bluff is Danez Smith’s powerful reckoning with their responsibility as a poet and with their hometown.

Smith brings a startling urgency to these poems, their questions demanding a new language, new textual shapes and a deep self-scrutiny. Ars poetica gives way to ‘ars america’. A photographic collage makes clear the consequence of accepting mass shootings. A brilliant long poem maps the history of Minneapolis-Saint Paul’s vibrant Rondo neighbourhood, before and after officials decided to run an interstate directly through it.

Bluff is a manifesto about artistic resilience when the places we most love – those given and made – are burning. In this collection, Smith turns to honesty, hope, rage and imagination to envision futures that seem possible.

PRAISE FOR DANEZ SMITH:

‘A poet of exceptional linguistic exuberance, style and grace’ Kayo Chingonyi, author of Kumukanda

‘A writer who never loses their way’ New York Times

‘Smith’s ability to look death squarely in the eye and seize from it language that is fertile with myth, beauty and intellect is astonishing’ Sandeep Parmar, Guardian

Publisher Review

‘In this latest collection Smith returns to examinations of racism, of its insidious violence, and of resistance to it. But this new work also strikingly explores the idea of the poet’s culpability, about how we write about injustices without profiting from them, either financially or in deeper cultural terms. There is an honesty in the work that is at times overwhelming, a book too hot to touch. This is Smith’s gift, this search for a sense of truth – or even justice – in a world without much of either. Inventive, restless, awe struck, and grieving, Smith pushes language and sonics like no other poet. In their steepled hands, poems become prayers to a god we are afraid to look at. It might be too early to declare, but I don’t think so. Bluff is my book of the year. Absolutely breathtaking’ * Joelle Taylor, author of C+nto & Othered Poems * ‘Bluff is a gripping collection that breaks the fourth wall. It is cathartic in its outpouring, inviting the reader to join, and be present. It’s as though the world is a scattered puzzle that Danez analyses and bears witness to. A reality, a mourning, an abstractness in making sense of, and motions to piece together’ * Yomi Sode, author of Manorism * ‘I didn’t think Danez Smith could get any more brilliant. I was wrong. A book that whispers to your bones. This is a book I will keep open. There is too much inside to ever let it close. You will want to underline, to highlight, to heart almost every line. Yes, everybody should read this book; not only for what is said, but for the impeccable, experimental and essential poetry in which it is written. This is one of the best books of poetry I’ve read: buy it for anyone you love’ * Hollie McNish *