BOOKS

Runagate: Songs of the Freedom Bound

Duke University Press, 2025

“The voices of the ransomed African Americans that Crystal Simone Smith reclaims in Runagate are resolutely alive. Smith captures the emotive and embodying possibilities of haiku and tanka to invite readers to reckon with their rejection of ‘the laws of slavery’ and invite us to imagine their lives beyond the confines of the posters and capture notices that once held their histories. This is the poetry of destiny, revealing Smith’s grasp of the infinite possibilities of formal poetics and of the living spirits who dared to claim freedom for themselves and for those of us who are blessed to hear their stories.”
– Sheila Smith McKoy, author of The Bones Beneath

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Dark Testament

Henry Holt and Co., 2023

Dark Testament gives voice to the mournful dead, their lives unjustly lost to violence, and to the grieving chorus of protestors in today’s Black Lives Matter movement, in search of resilience and hope. With poems found within the text of George Saunders’s Lincoln in the Bardo, Smith embarks on an uncompromising exploration of collective mourning and crafts a masterwork that resonates far beyond the page.

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Ebbing Shore

Horse & Buggy Press, 2022

Winner of the 2022 Touchstone Distinguish Book Award

Ebbing Shore is a limited-edition book of haiku designed by Dave Wofford of Horse and Buggy Press. As a poet of African descent writing haiku, Crystal’s approach, while conjured by the natural world, often shifts to that of cultural experiences. The focus is often historical, dating back to American slavery.

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Down to Earth

Longleaf Press, 2021

“Has freedom made us lazy, we might wonder as we read these incredible poems in Smith’s Down to Earth? Are we tourists in our lives, troubled by a history of enslavement? The voices and stories of black lives penetrate these questions in this collection of poems that don’t coddle or pull away from our earthly struggles to find hope and meaning in our human work. Down to Earth is an asking, a plea to take comfort in the stories and people who anchor our living. “Was it ever wrath?” asks Smith in her ars poetica, revealing that better and worse are spun from the same lightning strike. Poems like “Uncloudy Day” exemplify the core thematic energy of the book, that in the hardness of life God resides, and there is still time for us to “stand / gazing at the sky / unfisted and glad.” With nods to poets to like James Wright, Edgar Allen Poe, and Sylvia Plath, let Down to Earth direct your attention to the ways in which God is all around us, though He might take the shape of a bird or another creature, it is our job to catch the fleeting nature of this hope.”

– AMBER FLORA THOMAS, Author of Eye of Water, The Rabbits Could Sing, and Red Channel in the Rupture

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One Window’s Light

Unicorn Press, 2017

“This collection is like a window that presents the light of insights into African American history and culture and offers fresh haiku for the reader to see, hear, touch, smell, and taste for a growth of sensibility, a moment of enlightenment, a rhythm of creative thinking, and an appreciation of African American heritage. The most impressive part of this collection is its focus on environment and current events, offering a clear point of view that haiku is not just about nature; it is also about human nature and society.”

– JOHN ZHENG,
Editor of African American Haiku: Cultural Visions

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