Clint Smith in conversation with Josie Duffy Rice - Above Ground
A remarkable poetry collection with "inextinguishable generosity and abundant wisdom" (Monica Youn) from Clint Smith, the #1 New York Times bestselling and National Book Critics Circle award-winning author of "How the Word Is Passed."
A Cappella Books proudly welcomes National Book Critics Circle Award-winning author Clint Smith to the Inman Park United Methodist Church on Thursday, April 6, at 7 PM. Smith will discuss his latest poetry collection, "Above Ground," with Josie Duffy Rice, journalist, and co-host of Crooked Media's podcast "What a Day."
Seating is general admission. Each ADMIT 1 TICKET includes ONE signed copy of the book. Purchase your ticket through Freshtix via the link below, or skip the fees by buying directly from us in-store.
Please note: Although tickets are non-refundable, if you cannot attend, your ticket still entitles you to a signed copy of the book. A Cappella Books will hold your book for one month from the event date. You may pick it up in-store or call us to request shipping.
About the Book
Clint Smith's vibrant and compelling new collection traverses the vast emotional terrain of fatherhood, and explores how becoming a parent has recalibrated his sense of the world. There are poems that interrogate the ways our lives are shaped by both personal lineages and historical institutions. There are poems that revel in the wonder of discovering the world anew through the eyes of your children, as they discover it for the first time. There are poems that meditate on what it means to raise a family in a world filled with constant social and political tumult. "Above Ground" wrestles with how we hold wonder and despair in the same hands, how we carry intimate moments of joy and a collective sense of mourning in the same body. Smith's lyrical, narrative poems bring the reader on a journey not only through the early years of his children's lives, but through the changing world in which they are growing up—through the changing world of which we are all a part.
"Above Ground" is a breathtaking collection that follows Smith's first award-winning book of poetry, "Counting Descent."
About the Author
Clint Smith is a staff writer at The Atlantic. He is the author of the narrative nonfiction book, "How the Word Is Passed: A Reckoning With the History of Slavery Across America," which was a #1 New York Times bestseller, winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award for Nonfiction, the Hillman Prize for Book Journalism, the Stowe Prize, the Dayton Literary Peace Prize, and selected by the New York Times as one of the 10 Best Books of 2021. He is also the author of the poetry collection "Counting Descent," which won the 2017 Literary Award for Best Poetry Book from the Black Caucus of the American Library Association and was a finalist for an NAACP Image Award. His forthcoming poetry collection, "Above Ground," will be published March 28, 2023.
About the Conversation Partner
Josie Duffy Rice is Harvard Law School graduate and journalist whose work is primarily focused on prosecutors, prisons, and other criminal justice issues. She was President of The Appeal, a news publication that published original journalism about the criminal justice system. Josie co-hosts Crooked Media’s daily news podcast "What a Day." She has written for publications including The New York Times, Vanity Fair, The New Yorker, The Atlantic, and Slate.
