Search results for ""author clint smith""

A remarkable poetry collection with "inextinguishable generosity and abundant wisdom" (Monica Youn) from Clint Smith, the #1 New York Times bestselling and National Book Critics Circle award-winning author of How the Word Is Passed.Clint Smith's vibrant and compelling new collection traverses the vast emotional terrain of fatherhood, and explores how becoming a parent has recalibrated his sense of the world. There are poems that interrogate the ways our lives are shaped by both personal lineages and historical institutions. There are poems that revel in the wonder of discovering the world anew through the eyes of your children, as they discover it for the first time. There are poems that meditate on what it means to raise a family in a world filled with constant social and political tumult. Above Ground wrestles with how we hold wonder and despair in the same hands, how we carry intimate moments of joy and a collective sense of mourning in the same body. Smith's lyrical, narrative poems bring the reader on a journey not only through the early years of his children's lives, but through the changing world in which they are growing up-through the changing world of which we are all a part.Above Ground is a breath taking collection that follows Smith's first award-winning book of poetry, Counting Descent.Above Ground is a breath taking collection that follows Smith's first award-winning book of poetry, Counting Descent.

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ONE OF BARACK OBAMA'S FAVOURITE BOOKS OF THE YEARA NUMBER ONE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLERLONGLISTED FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FOR NON-FICTION'A beautifully readable reminder of how much of our urgent, collective history resounds in places all around us that have been hidden in plain sight.' Afua Hirsch, author of Brit(ish)Beginning in his hometown of New Orleans, Clint Smith leads the reader on an unforgettable tour of monuments and landmarks - those that are honest about the past and those that are not - which offer an intergenerational story of how slavery has been central in shaping a nation's collective history, and our own.It is the story of the Monticello Plantation in Virginia, the estate where Thomas Jefferson wrote letters espousing the urgent need for liberty while enslaving more than four hundred people. It is the story of the Whitney Plantation, one of the only former plantations devoted to preserving the experience of the enslaved people whose lives and work sustained it. It is the story of Angola, a former plantation-turned-maximum-security prison in Louisiana that is filled with Black men who work across the 18,000-acre land for virtually no pay. And it is the story of Blandford Cemetery, the final resting place of tens of thousands of Confederate soldiers.A deeply researched and transporting exploration of the legacy of slavery and its imprint on centuries of American history, How the Word Is Passed illustrates how some of our most essential stories are hidden in plain view - whether in places we might drive by on our way to work, holidays such as Juneteenth or entire neighbourhoods like downtown Manhattan, where the brutal history of the trade in enslaved men, women and children has been deeply imprinted.How the Word is Passed is a landmark book that offers a new understanding of the hopeful role that memory and history can play in making sense of the United States. Chosen as a book of the year by President Barack Obama, The Economist, Time, the New York Times and more, fans of Brit(ish) and Natives will be utterly captivated.What readers are saying about How the Word is Passed:'How the Word Is Passed frees history, frees humanity to reckon honestly with the legacy of slavery. We need this book.' Ibram X. Kendi, Number One New York Times bestselling author'An extraordinary contribution to the way we understand ourselves.' Julian Lucas, New York Times Book Review'The detail and depth of the storytelling is vivid and visceral, making history present and real.' Hope Wabuke, NPR'This isn't just a work of history, it's an intimate, active exploration of how we're still constructing and distorting our history." Ron Charles, The Washington Post'In re-examining neighbourhoods, holidays and quotidian sites, Smith forces us to reconsider what we think we know about American history.' Time'A history of slavery in this country unlike anything you've read before.' Entertainment Weekly'A beautifully written, evocative, and timely meditation on the way slavery is commemorated in the United States.' Annette Gordon-Reed, Pulitzer Prize-winning author

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Ronald Takaki's "brilliant revisionist history of America" (Publishers Weekly) is a landmark work of American history retells American history from the bottom up, through the lives of many minorities - Native Americans, African Americans, Jewish Americans, Irish Americans, Asian Americans, Latino Americans, and others - who helped create this country's mighty economy and rich mosaic culture. A Different Mirror brilliantly illuminates our country's defining strengths as it reveals America as a nation peopled by the world.

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