Blood Dazzler Poems by Patricia Smith

     Whenever a natural disaster occurs, horrific images of destruction and suffering may flash through peoples' heads. They invoke deep thought and emotion. In Patricia Smith's Blood Dazzler, poems illustrate emotion, destruction, scenes, and stories all through her writing on the experiences people faced after Hurricane Katrina. Smith gives readers the opportunity to attempt to feel like they were part of the destruction and devastation prevalent throughout and after Hurricane Katrina. Through poems like What Was the First Sound on page 19, Smith provides details the sights, sounds, colors, and feel after Hurricane Katrina hit. Using such details provides readers with an eerie feeling of being there and experiencing what Patricia Smith is seeing or experiencing herself. She does a wonderful job in putting readers in her shoes at it is tough to do when destruction can be extremely visual. The fact that Smith provides character in the Hurricane, often using first person to personify it, allows for Hurricane Katrina to seem more real and relatable to people around the country that haven't experienced the disaster first hand. Although people may not get quiet the credibility from Patricia because she is from New York, not New Orleans, she still does an excellent job conveying and bringing out emotion through the scenes and stories her writing portrays. I did not have a problem with her being an outsider as she did seem to have a connection and even sympathized for New Orleans, which allowed her to gain a connection with the disaster and her readers as well.