The Lost Songs of Nina Simone

Reviews

“Tracing Nina Simone’s lineage from well before she was thought of to the moments beyond her leaving the earth, Shonda Buchanan crystalizes her as a rare amalgam: piano prodigy, sudden soul singer, freedom fighter, half-loved-lover, complex mother and still more. This work— part-biography, part-homage and elegy—is “a tangle of hard truths” where Simone opens anew to us and croons: “I will sing you the gift of me.” Her whole body, a country, its own America, spiraled web of misery, brilliance and solitary dreaming. We are beckoned back despite the difficulties, as Buchanan conjures love, anointing, and righteous fire in this new Black devotional. Don’t let me be misunderstood: The Lost Songs of Nina Simone is a history of us as well as a potent re-telling of an extraordinary life.”
— Remica Bingham-Risher, author of Soul Culture: Black Poets, Books, and Questions That Grew Me Up and Room Swept Home

“The poems in Shonda Buchanan’s book, The Lost Songs of Nina Simone, combine to produce a compelling portrait, covering Simone’s life in a sweeping range of voices and forms. These often-incantatory poems sing their magic, resonating with authority and rich detail, reimagining her life, speculating, inspired by her strength and vision. This is no dry recounting of historical facts. Like the fine poet she is, Buchanan captures Simone’s essence in wild, surprising metaphors that soar with insight. Using her particular vision and personal identification, Buchanan more than meets the challenge of trying to capture the force of nature that was Nina Simone.”
— Jim Daniels, author of Gun/Shy and The Luck of the Fall

“Nina Simone was known to put a spell on you.  Now here comes Shonda Buchanan with poems that knits a scarf around the singer’s moods and spirit. Shonda begins with Nina’s ancestry and poems flow from the river of history, touching the banks along the way like Nina hitting keys on a piano. In The Lost Songs of Nina Simone Buchanan’s poems capture Simone’s blackness as well as the darkness she held within. This book is a meditation on her life; a Black woman poet’s detective work. Shonda Buchanan writes like a writer who has experienced a visitation from the Divine. Nina lives!”
— E. Ethelbert Miller, Writer and literary activist

“In The Lost Songs of Nina Simone, poet Shonda Buchanan evokes a kaleidoscope of Simone’s life—childhood, genius, abuse, motherhood, activism—in lush imagery and resonant lyricism: “I pounded white bones until my fingers/crumbled into Black birds.” Buchanan places the reader in the “Crushed rooms, cindered evenings” of Simone’s life, and never lets us forget the legacy of slavery and racism that shaped the artist, the woman, and her possibilities. You’ll want to savor this book slowly, maybe with Simone’s music on the turntable, and absorb the life that’s offered here.”
— Terry Wolverton, author, Embers, a novel in poems

“In The Lost Songs of Nina Simone, poet Shonda Buchanan captures the legendary artist in sharp, kaleidoscopic detail, highlighting Simone’s highs and lows, triumphs and tribulations, complications and contradictions. The result is expansive and deep. We come to a new understanding of Simone and ourselves–a singular and remarkable achievement.”
— Jeffery Renard Allen, author of Fat Time and Other Stories and Song of the Shank

“Buchanan gives us stories that sing poetic counterpoint as we experience Nina Simone’s metamorphosis, ancestry, and legacy. She expertly plays us like a virtuoso conductor draws out the inner voices of a symphony so we hear the complexities from the dark low notes to acrobatic scatting. We experience Buchanan’s hand like Nina’s spell echoing, full of bellows and arm-hair raising starry whispers, intimately knowing Nina’s intentions were good and not to be misunderstood.”
— Jen Cheng, Poet Laureate of West Hollywood (2023-26)

“Shonda Buchanan shines a bright light on the amazing Nina Simone, giving us a vivid picture of her life through poetry. It takes a bold and courageous talent like Buchanan to take on this project which is a sensory and riveting journey. Her words sing: they have to in order to truly bring Nina Simone alive in Buchanan’s stunning, must-have collection.”
— Carla Sameth, former Poet Laureate of Altadena; author of One Day on the Gold Line

“This collection of poems is steeped in a brew of molasses-thick imagery, haunting like a minor chord yet nurturing like the resonance in Nina Simone’s voice. This book will have you ‘pulling your woman self together at the seams.’”
— Camari Carter Hawkins, author of Death by Comb, founder of Mama’s Kitchen Press

“We think we know Nina Simone and then we read Shonda Buchanan’s brilliant, carefully researched poems. Here are the lost songs of Nina as a girl and the songs of the women in her family. Here is Buchanan’s vision of how music entered Nina and changed the whole world.”
— Renee Sims, author of Meet Behind Mars

“The Lost Songs of Nina Simone by Shonda Buchanan is a triumphant journey into the life of Nina Simone. Through lyrical storytelling and extensive research, Buchanan awakens Simone’s complex identity as a prodigious artist and a fierce Civil Rights activist. Her poems reimagine Simone’s musical and personal journey, exploring the depths of her struggles and the profound impact she had on Black women, artistry, and the global fight for justice. The result is a deeply moving homage to a woman whose voice and spirit continue to resonate within all of us.”
— Alene Terzian-Zeitounian, author of Deep as City’s Ache

“In The Lost Songs of Nina Simone, the reader is invited to embark on a journey through poems of a fantastical and imaginative linguistic landscape, where Nina Simone’s childhood is portrayed against the backdrop of a nature-centric, magical realist narrative. The book culminates in a realistic and politically charged conclusion, all intertwined in histories of Africa, Ireland, and North America.”
— Carolina Rivera Escamilla, author of In a Corner of Your Country