Tony Medina’s 22nd Book: Death, With Occasional Smiling
Talking with award winning poet, professor, and children’s author Dr. Tony Medina is like talking with an old friend. An old friend who came to give you the news of the day who is a poet, historian, satirist, and political commentator all rolled into one. Quick witted, humble, and humorous, Medina obliged me for an interview on my podcast, Nerdacity, shortly after the New Year. He told me his 22nd book was being released this Spring. I was intrigued.
Medina said that his latest book, Death, With Occasional Smiling took several years to write. The title he says, is a nod to “the pandemic” even though he created it years before this unfortunate time. I asked Medina about the themes in his book. He told me,
“There’s a lot of satire in it…political stuff…homelessness…it’s so many things…everything basically…there are poems that deal with Black comics like superheroes what I call the originals. It deals with a lot of Black Lives Matter type poems …”
Now that Death, With Occasional Smiling has been released, I’ve had the chance to dive into the mind of Medina and think on the meaning of his work in a time when we need poetry and words that shed light on our existence more than ever.
There is so much in Medina’s latest collection. The book is divided by chapters: “One Guy Shot…
