Synopses & Reviews
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 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. Hattie McDaniel, the first African American to win an Oscar, makes her way through crowds to receive the award. A girl in Harlem studies the flirtations of the adult world, so that someday she too can "pop right out." Fred Astaire once proclaimed. "I just put my feet in the air and move them around." Like Astaire Dove, speaking intimately to us as we lean in, is such a master that we never notice the labor of creation.
Review
"In American Smooth, Rita Dove Pulitzer Prize-winning poet, former poet laureate and competitive ballroom dancer pulls the ultimate dance trick: she makes it look easy." Emily Nussbaum, The New York Times Book Review
Review
"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." Library Journal