Unshuttered: Poems

National Book Award winner Patricia Smith presents a portrait of Black America in the nineteenth century

Over the course of two decades, Patricia Smith has amassed a collection of rare nineteenth—century photographs of Black men, women, and children who, in these pages, regard us from the staggering distance of time.

Unshuttered is a vessel for the voices of their incendiary and critical era. Smith’s searing stanzas and revelatory language imbue the subjects of the photos with dynamism and...