American Smooth

by Rita Dove

Overview

"Rita Dove pulls the ultimate dance trick: she makes it look easy."—New York Times Book Review

An occasion to celebrate: a new collection by the Pulitzer Prize-winning former poet laureate; her first since On the Bus with Rosa Parks. With the grace of an Astaire, Rita Dove's magnificent poems pay homage to our kaleidoscopic cultural heritage; from the glorious shimmer of an operatic soprano to Bessie Smith's mournful wail; from paradise lost to angel food cake; from hotshots at the local shooting range to the Negro jazz band in World War I whose music conquered Europe before the Allied advance. Like the ballroom-dancing couple of the title poem, smiling and making the difficult seem effortless, Dove explores the shifting surfaces between perception and intimation.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780393327441
Publisher:	Norton, W. W. & Company, Inc.
Publication date:	02/17/2006
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	144
Sales rank:	57,835
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.30(h) x 0.50(d)

About the Author

Rita Dove, Pulitzer Prize winner and former U. S. Poet Laureate, is the only poet honored with both the National Humanities Medal and the National Medal of Arts. Her recent works include Playlist for the Apocalypse, Sonata Mulattica, and the National Book Award-shortlisted Collected Poems: 1974-2004. In 2021 she was awarded the Gold Medal for Poetry from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and in 2023 she received the National Book Foundation’s Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters. She lives in Charlottesville, where she teaches creative writing at the University of Virginia.

Table of Contents

	Fox Trot Fridays	13
	All Souls'	15
	"I have been a stranger in a strange land"	17
	Fox Trot Fridays	19
	Ta Ta Cha Cha	20
	Quick	22
	Brown	23
	Fox	25
	Heart to Heart	26
	Cozy Apologia	28
	Soprano	30
	Two for the Montrose Drive-In	32
	Meditation at Fifty Yards, Moving Target	36
	American Smooth	39
	Not Welcome Here	41
	The Castle Walk	43
	The Passage	46
	Noble Sissle's Horn	57
	Alfonzo Prepares to Go Over the Top	59
	La Chapelle. 92nd Division. Ted.	60
	Variation on Reclamation	62
	The Return of Lieutenant James Reese Europe	65
	Ripont	67
	Twelve Chairs	71
	Blues in Half-Tones, 3/4 Time	87
	Chocolate	89
	Bolero	90
	Hattie McDaniel Arrives at the Coconut Grove	92
	Samba Summer	95
	Blues in Half-Tones, 3/4 Time	97
	Describe Yourself in Three Words or Less	99
	The Seven Veils of Salome	100
	From Your Valentine	104
	Rhumba	107
	The Sisters: Swansong	112
	Evening Primrose	115
	Evening Primrose	117
	Reverie in Open Air	118
	Sic Itur Ad Astra	119
	Count to Ten and We'll Be There	121
	Eliza, Age 10, Harlem	122
	Lullaby	123
	Driving Through	125
	Desert Backyard	127
	Desk Dreams	128
	Now	132
	Against Flight	134
	Looking Up from the Page, I Am Reminded of This Mortal Coil	136
	Notes	139
	Acknowledgments	141
	Biographical Note	143

Editorial Reviews

"Dove, with her precise, singing lines, eliminates the impure, the wrong notes, the clutter and the waste to reach straight to the heart of experiences so that emotion rings true."

From the Publisher

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

Emily Nussbaum

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.

Publishers Weekly

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.

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.

School Library Journal