American Smooth: Poems - ISBNLookup.com

Emily Nussbaum

For Dove, dance is an implicit parallel to poetry. Each is an expression of grace performed within limits; each an art weighted by history but malleable enough to form something utterly new. The title refers to Dove's favored style, a variant that allows partners to separate on the floor, enabling a disciplined wriggle between intimacy and freedom.
— The New York Times

Publishers Weekly

This substantial eighth collection from the former U.S. poet laureate recaps almost all of Dove's various projects and roles. The Ohio-born, Virginia-based poet made her name (and landed a Pulitzer Prize) with the sparsely wrought storytelling verse of Thomas and Beulah (1986). Dove displays her vivid narrative gifts and the formal versatility that enables them in "Not Welcome Here," a sequence about black American soldiers (and soldier-musicians) in the First World War; the sequence may be her strongest work in 10 years. Dove's public presence as laureate and educator-highlighted in On the Bus with Rosa Parks (1999)-informs the very accessible short poems that begin and end the volume, some of them based on dance steps or musical forms ("Fox Trot," "Lullaby," blues); several may be intended for young audiences ("Count to Ten and We'll Be There"). Short-lined poems such as "Soprano," meanwhile, revive the gift for freestanding, magazine-friendly lyric Dove showed in Grace Notes (1989), while work addressed to her daughter recalls Dove's previous depictions of mothers in myth (the Demeter and Persephone of Mother Love) and autobiographical fact. Though she claims (in "Brown"), "I prefer grand entrances," her most attractive work has been terse and subtle, almost photographic in its poise and reserve, never saying more than she means: the best of her new work returns to those familiar virtues. (Sept.) Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.

Library Journal

With her eye for the telling detail and her ear for the language and its idiosyncrasies of sound and meaning, Dove, a Pulitzer Prize winner and former poet laureate, combines the best of poetry and ventriloquism. In these free-verse poems, she speaks from her own perspective as well as from that of biblical characters, black soldiers from World War I, a ten-year-old girl from Harlem, several musicians, and a pair of dancers. The selections work by lists, line breaks where ideas collide, and a juxtaposition of voices. Then using razor-sharp metaphors, Dove goes for the jugular and usually finds it. Although the book's sense of audience seems inconsistent, with some poems suitable for A Child's Garden of Verses and others for The Kama Sutra, the poems are evocative. "The Seven Veils of Salome," a sequence as seductive as the original story, sketches in John the Baptist by noting "his large beautifully arrogant head." Recommended for public and academic libraries. C. Diane Scharper, Towson Univ., Towson, MD Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.

School Library Journal

Adult/High School-Headings such as "Not Welcome Here," a tribute to African-American soldiers who fought in World War I; "Hattie McDaniel Arrives at the Coconut Grove"; and "Blues in Half-Tones, 1/2 Time" illustrate the breadth of subjects in this collection of poems brought together from other sources. Many of them have the fine texture that is one definition of "smooth." An example is the poem "The Seven Veils of Salome": "-she moves as if inventing/time-and the musicians scurry/to deliver a carpet of flutes/under her flawless heel." Yet the term also describes a form of ballroom dancing that permits "-improvisation and individual expression." "Desk Dreams" makes clear the effort required in writing: "-Blue-ruled paper from grade school days./I languish for hours/on the near side of a hyphen: great expectations/cut by the call/of a single prehensile jay." Teens can dip into this book or read it straight through. There is something for everyone within its covers.-Molly Connally, Chantilly Regional Library, VA Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.