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A Gospel of Bones: Poems by Suzi Q. Smith

A Gospel of Bones: Poems by Suzi Q. Smith A Gospel of Bones header banner

A Gospel of Bones
Poems by Suzi Q. Smith

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“How survival transfigures into testament. How cultural memory never forgotten is remembered.”
—Bobby LeFebre,
Poet Laureate of Colorado


Suzi Q. Smith’s debut collection, A Gospel of Bones, is an exploration of internal dialogue and a survival guide as the poet examines and contends with the politics of biracial black womanhood, love, sex, single motherhood, family, violence, poverty, and most of all, prayer.

A Gospel of Bones includes poems that crisply and lyrically examine the poet’s own gospels. Smith’s writing is breathtaking and devastating at times, welcoming and affirming in others. In “We Pay Cash for Houses,” Smith uses contrapuntal to illustrate the grief and displacement caused by gentrification. In “This Crown Crooked Anyway,” a crown of American sonnets, Smith offers a narrative on faith, violence, love, divorce, grief, and policing, with the racial dynamics threaded throughout. The poems are an offering of unflinching and fierce determination to tell the good stories, the hidden stories, the hard stories, and all that endures after the telling.

Winner of the 2020 Electric Book Award

Content warnings: racial injustices, violence

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Praise for A Gospel of Bones


“A Gospel of Bones is a smile with a razor hidden beneath its tongue. A raised fist protecting the flower cradled inside of it. Gospel is how survival transfigures into testament. How cultural memory never forgotten is remembered. Gospel is what happens when one turns themselves inside out and dares another to look in: blood, beauty, and Blackness slow-dancing before their eyes.”
—Bobby LeFebre,
Poet Laureate of Colorado


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About A Gospel of Bones

• Poetry
• Published by Alternating Current Press
• 5” x 8” Perfectbound Trade Paperback
• Cream Paper, 106 Pages
• Print ISBN-13: 978-1-946580-27-6
• First Edition: February 9, 2021
• Permalink | Short URL: tinyurl.com/gospelofbones
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A Gospel of Bones

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About Suzi Q. Smith

SUZI Q. SMITH is an award-winning artist, activist, and educator who lives in Denver, Colorado. Her poems have appeared in Union Station Magazine, Suspect Press, La Palabra, Muzzle Magazine, Malpais Review, The Pedestal, The Los Angeles Journal, Denver Syntax, Word Is Bond, The Peralta Press, Yellow Chair Review, and in the anthologies The Mutiny Info Reader, Diverse-City, His Rib: Anthology of Women, and In Our Own Words. Her chapbook collection of poems, Thirteen Descansos, was published by Penmanship Books in 2015. Currently, Suzi Q. is at work on her next collection while she continues to teach Creative Writing and cultivate a beautiful life.

About artwork for A Gospel of Bones

Front and back cover designed by Leah Angstman. Front cover artwork contains elements by Art Tower.





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