A Gospel of Bones

Winner of the 2020 Electric Book Award. // Suzi Q. Smith's debut collection, A Gospel of Bones, is an exploration of internal dialogue and a survival guide as the poet examines and contends with the politics of biracial black womanhood, love, sex, single motherhood, family, violence, poverty, and most of all, prayer. // A Gospel of Bones includes poems that crisply and lyrically examine the poet's own gospels. Smith's writing is breathtaking and devastating at times, welcoming and affirming in others. In "We Pay Cash for Houses," Smith uses contrapuntal to illustrate the grief and displacement caused by gentrification. In "This Crown Crooked Anyway," a crown of American sonnets, Smith offers a narrative on faith, violence, love, divorce, grief, and policing, with the racial dynamics threaded throughout. The poems are an offering of unflinching and fierce determination to tell the good stories, the hidden stories, the hard stories, and all that endures after the telling.