A searing new collection from the Forward prizewinning American poet with a devoted online and international following ‘A writer who never loses their way’ New York Times A searing new collection from the Forward Prize-winning American poet about the year that the world’s gaze turned to Minneapolis – Smith’s own home. Written after two years of artistic silence, during which the world came to a halt due to the COVID-19 pandemic and Minneapolis became the epicentre of protest following the murder of George Floyd, Bluff is Danez Smith’s powerful reckoning with their role and responsibility as a poet and with their hometown. This is a book of awakening out of violence, guilt, shame and critical pessimism to imagine how we can strive towards a new existence in a world that seems to be dissolving into desolate futures. Smith brings a startling urgency to these poems, their questions demanding a new language, a deep self-scrutiny and virtuosic textual shapes.
