Blood Dazzler by Patricia Smith is a collection of free-verse and formal (sestinas, tankas, ghazals, and villanelles!) poems about the destruction of New Orleans and surrounding areas of the Gulf Coast and its people by Hurricane Katrina in 2005. The poems are in the voices of those people whose lives have been lost as well as in the voice of the hurricane itself. The poems detail the environmental, human and spiritual devastation of the event as well as cataloguing the political responses (or lack thereof) to this devastation. The poems are largely imaginings of specific personal responses, an attempt to give voice to those who are not heard and those who are gone forever.
Purchase: https://www.abebooks.com/Blood-Dazzler-Smith-Patricia-Coffee-House/15343032387/bd?cm_mmc=ggl-_-US_Shopp_Trade-_-signed-_-naa&gclid=EAIaIQobChMIi__-wY7M5AIVTwOGCh065wLkEAQYAyABEgKPpvD_BwE
An interview about the book: https://www.bustle.com/p/patricia-smith-didnt-want-anyone-to-forget-hurricane-katrina-so-she-wrote-blood-dazzler-18696612
A video of Smith talking about the book: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=U3_0jorU4sw
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