seen that ol' sweet sun lift me out of sleep.

[balladsofmirth]

***

This is one of my favorite poem's from Patricia Smith's poetry collection, Blood Dazzler. You know, I'm a sucker for sestinas, and I really think the dialect is on-point, the images are sound, and that it just captures everything from the horror of the storm.

ETHEL'S SESTINA

Ethel Freeman's body sat for days in her wheelchair outside the

Comments

[thelauderdale]

That is an amazing poem. And the choice of end words was great - I would never have chosen homonyms like "son" and "sun," but those and "come" were excellent choices and lent it more of a rhyme-quality than most sestinas have. The ending killed me. It was amazingly done.

[balladsofmirth]

Yes! I love the end words! the whole poetry collection is full of stunning forms -- everything from sonnet to sestinas and pieces that experiment with space. I think it's why the collection is so important to me: the images are raw but the poems are well-built.

But damn, that ending. You get it. You know. There's another poem about the elderly that were left at a retirement home because there was no way to get them out. Good lord, it haunts me as much as the dog poems (i.e. the dogs that were left not on purpose but because there was no way to get back to the city).

Whew.

[_swallow]

oh dang, patricia smith. that gave me goosebumps then tears.

[balladsofmirth]

Have you read her? You should. Blood Dazzler isn't perfect, but damn, it's raw and stunning. I'd forgotten what it was like to sit back in my chair because something really dug into the guts of a subject.

There's a series of poems about a dog that was left during the storm, and these pieces KILL ME. Like, I was straight up crying in my living room while reading them. My roommate asked me what was up, and I read one to her and then she started crying.

[_swallow]

yes, i love her! and, yes, exactly.