The Intentions of Thunder: New and Selected Poems

The Intentions of Thunder: New and Selected Poems brings together essential work from across the long career of Patricia Smith, one of the most celebrated poets in the United States and a four-time individual champion of the National Poetry Slam. Alongside new poems, the collection gathers selections from her earlier books, tracing the range of a voice that moves between lyric tenderness and fierce witness. The poems confront personal pain and the weight of American history, especially Black history and experience, while also looking toward what the future might hold. Throughout, Smith treats poetry itself as a subject, celebrating its power to testify and its pleasures of sound and image. The book offers both an introduction for new readers and a retrospective for longtime admirers. It won the 2025 National Book Award for Poetry and was a 2026 Pulitzer Prize finalist.