Back to Alabama
Poems by Valerie A. Smith
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Sundress Publications announces the release of Back to Alabama, poems by Valerie A. Smith.
A deep, transformative examination of the Black American narrative, Back to Alabama resonates with raw truth and forthright introspection, leaving a lasting impact on the reader’s heart and mind with “All this electric light shining.”
Back to Alabama is a poignant poetry collection exploring the complexities of Black American identity, family, cultural heritage, womanhood, and religious faith. Smith writes, “The Blues down south would cut you.” Through evocative verses, Smith delves into the Black experience, from music, art, and film to historical racism and resilience. This compelling work offers profound insights into the speaker’s journey, inviting readers to reflect on the enduring themes of social justice and spirituality wherein, “Time denies it ever happened.”
Valerie A. Smith, PhD
Poet | Educator | Scholar
Valerie A. Smith is a poet and creative nonfiction writer with a PhD in English from Georgia State University. She earned her Master’s at Kennesaw State University. Smith is a 2022 Sewanee Writers’ Conference Scholar and Hambidge Center for the Creative Arts Fellow. Her poems have appeared in Wayne Literary Review, Spectrum Literary Journal, Dogwood: A Journal of Poetry and Prose, Crosswinds Poetry Journal, Aunt Chloe: A Journal of Artful Candor, Typehouse Literary Magazine, Oyster River Pages, Obsidian: Literature & Arts in the African Diaspora, Solstice Literary Magazine, Auburn Avenue, and South 85. Above all, she values spending time with family.
Commentary on Back to Alabama
Beth Gylys, author of Body Braille
“Valerie Smith ends her gorgeously rich debut collection, Back to Alabama, writing, ‘I close my eyes and imagine / I’m manageable.’ It’s a wise conclusion to a book that has (indeed) attempted to manage the unmanageable: southern racism, violence against black Americans, the sudden devastating loss of a nephew, the rupture with a beloved but imperfect church community. With compelling linguistic versatility, Smith’s book effortlessly navigates a complicated range of subject matter, unflinchingly exploring these dark threads and/but also embracing natural beauty, celebrating family and music and art, and immersing us in the complexities of life and love and loss so that in the end we feel the resilient strength of a speaker who has both witnessed and lived through suffering and arrived whole on the other side, a speaker who has ‘taught’ herself ‘between thunder and light’ to sing beautifully for us all.”
Carl Phillips, author of Then the War: And Selected Poems
“In Back to Alabama, Valerie Smith takes on the kaleidoscope of human experience—of African-American experience especially—and the ongoing attempts in this country to define and limit that experience wherever it announces itself, from sports to jazz, from film to painting, from history to the intimacy of how to love another person, how to parent, how to love oneself, while also believing that ‘Without/one another we succumb.’ In the tradition of her tutelary gods—Walker, Angelou, and Morrison—Smith knows how high the stakes are, how fragile our lives, how equally important it is to witness trauma and to celebrate our survival. ‘We/Are/The/ Black/Arts/Moving,’ she says; Back to Alabama is a wide-ranging, persuasive debut—Smith sings, and I find myself singing with her.”
Jenny Sadre-Orafai, author of Dear Outsiders
“The poems in Back to Alabama are homages to those who have been lost as much as they are poems of endurance, celebration, and joy. Reminiscent of Gwendolyn Brooks and with a voice like the Blues and the prayers that permeate the collection, Smith wrestles with ‘Knowing the world/ Is on its own.’ These poems illuminate the vulnerable who may have been forgotten and remember them in such tremendous language that after reading the collection, the shine of the poems is everywhere.”
Valerie A. Smith, Ph.D 