Scorched Earth: Poems [Paperback]

2025 National Book Award Finalist

The striking sophomore poetry collection from the award-winning author of the “beautiful, vulnerable, honest” (Ross Gay,New York Timesbestselling author)I Can’t Talk About the Trees Without the Blood.

Dive between the borders of ruined and radical love with this lyrical poetry collection that explores topics as expansive as divorce, the first Black Bachelorette, and the art world. Stanzas shift between reverence to irreverence as they take us on a journey through institutional and historical pains alongside sensuality and queer, Black joys.

From a generational voice that “earns a place among the pantheon of such emerging black poets as Eve L. Ewing, Nicole Sealey, and Airea D. Matthews” (Booklist, starred review),Scorched Earthis a transcendent anthology for our times.Tiana Clark is the author of the poetry collections Scorched Earth; I Can’t Talk About the Trees Without the Blood, which won the 2017 Agnes Lynch Starrett Prize; and Equilibrium, which won the 2016 Frost Place Chapbook Competition. Clark’s other honors include a Pushcart Prize, a Kate Tufts Discovery Award, and fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference. She is a graduate of Vanderbilt University and Tennessee State University, where she studied Africana and women’s studies. She is the Grace Hazard Conkling Writer-in-Residence at Smith College. Find out more at TianaClark.com.Self-Portrait at Divorce

Self-Portrait at Divorce

The day my husband left

I accidentally set off the house alarm
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