"Patricia Smith is writing some of the best poetry in America today. Ms Smith’s new book, Shoulda Been Jimi Savannah, is just beautiful—and like the America she embodies and represents—dangerously beautiful. Shoulda Been Jimi Savannah is a stunning and transcendent work of art, despite, and perhaps because of, its pain. This book shines." —Sapphire

"One of the best poets around and has been for a long time." —Terrance Hayes

"Smith's work is direct, colloquial, inclusive, adventuresome." —Gwendolyn Brooks

In her newest collection, National Book Award finalist Patricia Smith explores the second wave of the Great Migration. From her parents' move from the South of Chicago to being raised as an "up North" child under the spell of Motown music, she captures the rampant romanticism of waiting and hoping and the dogged disappointment and damage of living under a delusion. Shifting from spoken word to free verse to traditional forms, she reveals "that soul beneath the vinyl."

Patricia Smith is the author of five volumes of poetry, including Blood Dazzler, a finalist for the 2008 National Book Award, and Teahouse of the Almighty, a winner of the Hurston/Wright Legacy Award and the Paterson Poetry Prize. A professor at the City University of New York, she lives in New Jersey with her husband, Bruce DeSilva, granddaughter, Mikaila, and two dogs, Brandy and Rondo.