Duende: Poems - Softcover

"The most persuasively haunted poems here are those where [Smith] casts herself not simply as a dutiful curator of personal history but a canny medium of fellow feeling and the stirrings of the collective unconscious . . . [And] it's this charged air of rapt apprehension that gives her spare, fluid lines their coolly incantatory tenor as she warms to the task of channeling disquieting visions and fugitive voices." --The New York Times Book Review on The Body's Question

Tracy K. Smith's bold second poetry collection explores the history and intersections of folk traditions and political resistance. One poem tells of a Ho-Chuk Indian boy, separated from his tribe by the government, another gives voice to Ugandan women kidnapped by rebel commanders. Duende gives passionate testament to the history of these cultures and others, allowing them to sing.