“Devotions,” a book of poems by Bruce Smith, professor of English in The College of Arts and Sciences at Syracuse University, is set to be released in April 2011. “Devotions” (University of Chicago Press Books) is made up of meditations, provocations and messages from the chatter of the street, high schools, laundromats, motels, films and dreams that measure things Americans hold most dear.
Smith and his partner, Jules Gibbs, an award-winning poet, have been coined the area’s “poetry power couple.” Coincidentally, Gibbs’ chapbook, “The Bulk of the Mailable Universe” (Dancing Girl Press 2011), is set to be released later this month.
“Devotions” is the sixth book written by Smith. “The poems glow with ghost rhymes, hypnotic catalogues and lyric enchantments that constitute ‘a blues about the rules for distance and difficult love,’” says Terrance Hayes, author of “Lighthead,” winner of the National Book Award. “This amazing new book overwhelms me in the best possible ways.”
Smith is the author of five books of poems, more recently including, “Songs for Two Voices” (University of Chicago, 2005). Poems in this collection have appeared in The Best American Poetry, 2003 and 2004. His fourth book, “The Other Lover” (University of Chicago, 2000), was a finalist for both the National Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize.
His poems have appeared in Poetry, The Nation, The New Republic, The Paris Review, The Partisan Review, The American Poetry Review, and many others. Essays and reviews of his have appeared in Harvard Review, Boston Review and Newsday. He has been a recipient of a Guggenheim fellowship as well as twice receiving grants from the National Endowment of the Arts and the Massachusetts Foundation for the Arts.
