Why read Unshuttered?

Book cover of Unshuttered: Poems

Book description

An award-winning author presents a portrait of Black America in the nineteenth century

Over the course of two decades, award-winning poet Patricia Smith has amassed a collection of rare nineteenth-century photographs of Black men, women, and children who, in these pages, regard us from the staggering distance of time.

Unshuttered…

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Topics

African Americans

Genres

Poetry

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Why read it?

1 author picked Unshuttered as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

Gabby Gilliam

Author

Patricia Smith gathered a collection of antique portraits of African Americans, most from the years near the end of the Civil War and during Reconstruction. She gives those frozen subjects a voice and a story to give readers a piece of imagined history.

Her word choices give the poems a beautiful sound. The first poem of the collection was a personal favorite, and I expect I will read these poems many more times just to revisit them.

From Gabby's 3 favorite reads in 2023.