Poetry Book Club: “The Intentions of Thunder” by Patricia Smith

Bookstore1Sarasota's monthly poetry book club takes up "The Intentions of Thunder," the first book to gather the essential work of Patricia Smith's long career in one volume of new and selected poems. The collection won the 2025 National Book Award for Poetry and the NAACP Image Award for poetry, and it was a Pulitzer finalist. Smith is a four-time National Poetry Slam champion who teaches at Princeton's Lewis Center for the Arts. She writes persona poems and strict forms with equal command, and Motown runs through the book like a bass line. For a discussion group, the volume is a rare chance to follow a major poet's voice as it changes across decades.