danez smith interview

I know that, for me, I felt insecure because a lot of the beginnings of my recognition in the poetry scene were attached to these poems about black death. Don’t Call Us Dead was a collection that spoke truth to white power and made Smith a literary star. Originally, the book was going to have poems named after black people killed by “state-sanctioned violence”, with a section about a friend’s suicide. This week, Lily Philpott speaks with the poet Danez Smith, author of Homie (Graywolf Press, 2020). Bernard, whenever he thought of Geoffrey, would remember his gait on the afternoon of their first meeting. The poem “dear white America” became a viral sensation, with Smith’s intense performance of it earning comparisons to “Howl” – Allen Ginsberg’s exasperated condemnation of the US in the 1950s. Poets of colour here are doing a lot of interesting, inventive work and I think POCs understand the dangers of individualism, so we tend to collectivise in the interests of community just because that. Geoffrey walked... Luke Hart will meet me at Gate 7. About Danez. These poems decenter through love, erasing margins and … “Maybe that was the thing with Don’t Call Us Dead, it was a lot angrier with white people,” Smith says. So it’s just to pull back from that moment and say: ‘Hey, I might not be talking about your particular situation but you can find yourself a seat at the table.’”. I say all that to say that I, by being the poet and person I am. The Rumpus Poetry Book Club chats with Danez Smith about their new collection Homie (Graywolf Press, January 2020), how winter can break you, the white gaze in art, and how violence can be an act of love and what the implications of that are.. They are the author of two poetry collections, Don’t Call Us Dead (Graywolf, 2017) and [insert] boy (YesYes, 2014), winner of the Lambda Literary Award and the Kate Tufts Discovery Award, and are working on their third. It, t nominated, that many other collections by POC writers weren, t up there. So I think ‘politics of elegy’ and ‘not an elegy’ is a way of recognising the muckiness of that. Eliot Prize in the past year, which I, m so glad that Ocean Vuong won, I think it, poet of colour on that list and that the only poet of colour on that list was coming from America. Danez Smith was born in St. Paul, Minnesota. “solidarity” is a word, a lot of people say iti’m not sure what it means in the fleshi know i love & have cried for my friendstheir browns a different brown than minei’ve danced their dances when taught& tasted how their mothers miracle the ricedifferent than mine. Because a book is nothing but paper and language. “If your understanding of black radical art starts and ends with Amiri Baraka and Sonia Sanchez, then you don’t really know a lot of the archive. (function($) {window.fnames = new Array(); window.ftypes = new Array();fnames[0]='EMAIL';ftypes[0]='email';fnames[1]='FNAME';ftypes[1]='text';fnames[2]='LNAME';ftypes[2]='text';fnames[3]='ADDRESS';ftypes[3]='address';fnames[4]='PHONE';ftypes[4]='phone';}(jQuery));var $mcj = jQuery.noConflict(true); Sharon Hayes’ In My Little Corner of the World, Anyone Would Love You at Studio Voltaire features a five-channel video projection onto plywood hoarding... Sign-up here for news, events, promotions, etc. The New Yorker said of Don’t Call Us Dead that Smith’s poems “can’t make history vanish, but they can contend against it with the force of a restorative imagination”. For any author to be able to delve into depressing or hard topics you need something, and so this idea of films, these sort of mini-movies, this idea of image-making, was a tether that I used to help myself buoy into the work. Danez Smith is here with PBS Books at AWP 2018 to talk with us about his book of poetry, Don’t Call Us Dead: Poems. It is no surprise that Smith. Smith grew up, on this border between the blacker areas and the white middle-class enclaves of the city, as a black, queer, God-fearing child. because black boys can always be too loud to live. They. Danez Smith is the author of Don’t Call Us Dead and [insert] boy, winner of the 2016 Kate Tufts Discovery Award and the 2015 Lambda Literary Award. Smith is also the author of … Momentarily, we become plural in the act of listening — a rare spirit of communalism against a shared pain rears up and dissipates, leaving us with a renewed sense of purpose. The PEN Ten is PEN America’s weekly interview series. A note says: “This book was titled Homie because I don’t want non-black people to say ‘My Nig’ out loud. Danez is co-host of the "VS" podcast - you can find that at "VS" podcast - and the author of "Don't Call Us Dead." I asked myself: ‘Why am I spending so much time worried about this gaze?’ I think white people can learn a lot from the poems, but that’s not who I’m writing for.”, That imagined reader is a specific group Smith calls “Beloveds”: the largely black and queer friends and acquaintances Homie addresses. With Homie, Smith decided to focus on the theme of friendship and what they refer to as a “deep investigation of the n-word”. I just have to get it out. Smith grew up in St Paul, Minnesota and became a fixture of the slam poetry scene — they are a 2011 Individual World Poetry Slam finalist and reigning two-time Rustbelt Individual Champion, as well as festival director for the Brave New Voices International Youth Poetry Slam. Smith is the recipient of fellowships from … anez Smith was born into a devout Baptist household in St Paul, Minnesota. Shame, for Smith, is no longer an option. National Book Critics Circle w/ Rigoberto Gonzalez. I felt like I had been to the top of something. Author interview. … because Jordan boomed. Over that time Smith has observed the hypocritical standards of the race debate in Britain. Certainly the American legacy of racism owes a lot to the British Empire, whose descendants Smith suggests would prefer to spectate, aghast, at the crimes of their former colony. But it also felt really gross.”, “I couldn’t write Don’t Call Us Dead again,” they add. Danez Smith talked drafts at Guernica.. At Tor.com, thoughts … lately has been a long timesays the girl from Pakistan, Lahore to be specificat the bus stop when the white manask her where she’s from & thensays oh, you from Lahore?it’s pretty bad over there lately. THEM Interview w/ Ashia Ajani Guardian/Observer Interview w/ Kate Kallaway. Another reason for this more inward-looking perspective comes from Smith’s struggle with writer’s block in the lead-up to the deadline for Homie. Smith’s grandmother still lives there, in one of only two black households on a street that was mixed but is becoming increasingly white. Divedapper Interview w/ Kaveh Akbar . Danez Smith was born in St. Paul, Minnesota, and received an MFA from the University of Michigan. How prepared do you feel for a UK audience? Smith begins their reading that evening by pointing out that any white British person in the audience who thinks they can exempt themselves from the horror of America, s racial violence is plainly wrong: the British, . I’d spent weeks with their book Don’t Call Us Dead , reading and annotating it for a review, and thought the opportunity to speak to them at the event was something that could compliment the things I was exploring … • From Homie, published by Chatto on 20 February. “The first writing I ever loved was the Sunday sermon,” Smith says when we meet in Manchester, ahead of a live performance. So even though I was writing a wide range of work on a plethora of topics, it was ‘dear white america’, ‘not an elegy’ and ‘alternate names for black boys’, all these poems that are thinking directly about black death, that propelled my name into the American consciousness in poetry. Poems titled “niggas!”, “shout out to my niggas in Mexico”, “white niggas”, and an explicit quote from a Lil Wayne song make the point again. Smith’s grandmother still lives there, in one of only two black households on a street that was mixed but is becoming increasingly white. Interview with Danez Smith At the end of January 2018 I met Danez Smith in Manchester, before their event at the Anthony Burgess Centre that evening. For Smith, it is important that Europeans include themselves in those conversations about race and language: not being a white American does not absolve European readers from the burden of racism. When I read Danez Smith’s first full-length collection [Insert] Boy I couldn’t help but think about NPR. “So it felt good to know a poem was good for healing and rage or whatever for my people. Now that your book has been published in the UK, I wanted to begin by asking you about any differences you sense between UK and US poetry readerships. Smith’s 2017 collection, Don’t Call Us Dead, confronted issues that were raging in the US as the Black Lives Matter gained momentum. And I think the imagined audience for poetry is broadening. As the event’s host, the poet Andrew McMillan, commented during the Q&A later that evening, from this side of the Atlantic it feels as though American poetry is going through a golden age: American poets (especially poets of colour) are fuelling a political collective consciousness and discourse around identity and equality. One hopes that they will do more than merely acknowledge their privilege, as described by Smith’s work repeatedly in relation to Black and queer bodies. They are the author of Don't Call Us Dead (2017), a finalist for the National Book Award; [insert] Boy (2014), winner of the Lambda Literary Award and the Kate Tufts Discovery Award; and the chapbook hands on ya knees (Penmanship Books, 2013). That was weird, and I had to deal with that, and I didn’t know how to. When I see a lot of white critics reviewing books by poets of colour, they, re reviewing the funk of the poem but they, re not actually able to talk about it in the sense of the lyric or the line, all the amazing things POC poets are pushing and inventing in terms of craft. Smith is the author of Homie, (Graywolf Press, 2020), Don’t Call Us Dead (Graywolf Press, 2017), which was short-listed for the National Book Award, and [insert] boy (YesYes Books, 2014), winner of the Kate Tufts Discovery … Smith, s reputation is founded initially in live performance; their transatlantic visibility precedes them through a variety of online and print platforms as well as a huge social media following, all of which has created a community of poets and readers, something central to both their writing and live performance. s work gives us is an unwavering sense of responsibility for the survival of others and ourselves. The latter part stayed but Smith decided to make the titles and themes more personal. “I think that is true but it’s not particular to me.” Some reviewers, Smith argues, are “so blinded by identity” that they don’t realise they are being “marvelled by craft”. Thinking about your own experiences in the US with writing organisations, communities and collectives like Cave Canem, do you have any sense of similar emerging communities for People of Colour here in the UK? There are a lot of amazing poets of colour here. Danez Smith is the author of Don’t Call Us Dead (Graywolf Press, 2017), winner of the Forward Prize for Best Collection, the Midwest Booksellers Choice Award, and a finalist for the National Book Award, and [insert] boy (YesYes Books, 2014), winner of the Kate Tufts Discovery Award and … Smith is grateful for a British audience while also being humbly cautious about taking the spotlight from a UK poet of colour. Because without that construction of thinking about, ‘how do I frame this in a thematic kind of way towards this thing I’m building?’, I would have really lost myself in the work and not been able to do what I did. I don’t think that’s what I ever created but it was being used as that.”. s a transatlantic conversation happening around poets of colour, or BAME poets as we call them in the UK, and the ways in which their work is perceived against a kind of white, predominately lyric mainstream style. Poet Danez Smith. That process starts from the very first page. They are connecting to the work, but “they are having a different journey to someone who can understand the author’s point of view”. your people, my people, all that has happenedto us & still make love under rusted moons, still pullchildren from the mothers & name themstill teach them to dance & your pain is not mine& is no less & is mine & i pray to my god your godblesses you with mercy & i have tasted your food & understandhow it is a good home & i don’t know your languagebut i understand your songs & i cried when they camefor your uncles & when you buried your niecei wanted the world to burn in the child’s brief memory& still, still, still, still, still, still, still, still, still& i have stood by you in the soft shawl of morningwaiting & breathing & waiting. “My time,” they wrote, “has finally come.” — Ben Purkert for Guernica Danez Smith: I love this series! Of course, the mostly white crowd sitting in this room are not the ones that need convincing. I’m still invested in this intimate and small table: I can name the people that my poems are for.”. Danez Smith is the author of Don’t Call Us Dead, a finalist for the 2017 National Book Award which circles their Black, queer, and HIV positive status.At once haunted, sensual, explosive and intensely deliberate, this epic of intersectional identity is indispensable to contemporary poetry. “It’s about saying ‘hello’ to the people of colour in the room, ‘let’s talk’.”. The friends came and went but there was always one constant: church. “So there are people I have been compared to – more canonical folks – who I don’t even know. There is constant energy of self-reflection, humor, love, conviction, … They are the recipient of numerous fellowships and prizes, including from The National Endowment for the Arts, The Poetry Foundation, and Lambda Literary. That is Danez Smith. You are still up to it. But Smith says they are fundamentally a “formalist”, who loves to “geek out” over sonnet crowns and voltas. I’m obsessed with that little slider thing. You might be a student of Whitman because one of your favourites really liked Whitman.”, For Smith, the bigger crime is that too few reviewers are aware of many of the established poets who have been influences – people such as Patricia Smith, Lucille Clifton and Amaud Jamaul Johnson. Reading Danez Smith’s poetry is like walking face-first into everything you’re afraid of looking at for too long. “I was in my own head for a little bit, asking myself: ‘What does it mean if my next book doesn’t win the National book award or some big thing?’ I don’t like that side of myself. you took one look at the river, plump with the body of boy after girl after sweet boi & ask why does it always have to be about race? Smith’s reputation is founded initially in live performance; their transatlantic visibility precedes them through a variety of online and print platforms as well as a huge social media following, all of which has created a community of poets and readers, something central to both their writing and live performance. … Danez Smith is a Black, Queer, Poz poet and performer from Minneapolis, MN. And, thinking about ‘Short Film’, I remove all the names when it becomes ‘not an elegy’, and that is to speak to the haphazardness of black death and police brutality and how it could be anyone. If I had a different job, I might prepare differently for a British audience, but luckily my job is to be a poet, and poetry is less interested in borders than people are. Interview: Danez Smith Danez Smith was born St. Paul, Minnesota. While I do hope that the book does well here, I also hope that my doing well doesn’t, from a British poet of colour. In the world of Smith’s poems, love is abundant: these poems love Black people, queer people, God, kin and self and strangers alike. It is no surprise that Smith’s onstage charisma and passion exudes from work that is rooted both in the personal and in a community that extends well beyond their experiences as a black, queer American poet wrestling with a national legacy of violence. Danez Smith is the author of [insert] boy (YesYes Books), winner of the Lambda Literary Award for Gay Poetry, and Black Movie, winner of the 2014 Button Poetry Chapbook Prize.Their second full-length collection will be published by Graywolf Press in 2017. Smith currently co-hosts the popular Poetry Foundation podcast, VS. That imagination was honed at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where Smith studied before going on to form the Dark Noise Collective with other artists including Franny Choi, with whom Smith co-hosts the poetry podcast VS. Today, Smith makes a living from book sales, touring and teaching in Minnesota, where they still live, but has struggled with the idea of making money from a book so expressly about black suffering. Homie by Danez Smith (Graywolf) 11 Rave • 2 Positive Listen to an interview with Danez Smith here “…by hiding the real name of the book, Smith only makes it available to those who take the time to read it. Open Borders Books is doing important work in Queens.. Paul Tremblay shared highlights from his year in books at The Millions.. Feel like reading a comprehensive history of Surinamese music?. Three books of searing, brazenly queer and political poetry have made them one of the most discussed poets of their generation, and placed them at the vanguard of an African American movement that has seen spoken-word artists move from stages and backrooms to book deals and awards success. But Britain feels too far behind the US in terms of celebrating their poets of colour. Smith, , had just been published in the UK, having already appeared in the US to much acclaim, where it was shortlisted for the National Book Award in Poetry. That’s not why I still write poems.’”. Danez Smith my bitch! Smith ’ s latest collection, Don’t Call Us Dead , had just been published in the UK, having already appeared in the US to much acclaim, where it was shortlisted for the … Danez is the author of “Homie” (Graywolf Press, 2020), "Don’t Call Us Dead" (Graywolf Press, 2017), winner of the Forward Prize for Best Collection, the Midwest Booksellers Choice Award, and a finalist for the National Book Award, and "[insert] boy" … Photo by Tabia Yapp. Exclusive Interview: Danez Smith Lannie Stabile When I first heard Danez Smith’s name, I knew it was synonymous with incredible talent by the way it rolled, casually but with a dash of worship, around my buddy’s tongue. Back in September, the news organization published the article “Where Have the Poets Gone?” which asked if modern poetry has lost its vibrancy and place as the “language of protest” in America. I think there are a lot of poets of colour who realise that there are other places to go besides academia in terms of where our work lives. I had to come back and say: ‘That is not at all why I started writing poems. What Smith. Just let me get it out.”. That has to change. Momentarily, we become plural in the act of listening, a rare spirit of communalism against a shared pain rears up and dissipates, leaving us with a renewed sense of purpose. They tried to send all the Jamaicans back too. Danez Smith was born St. Paul, Minnesota. Smith moves the audience to act, to laugh, applaud, respond, snap their fingers (some do) and interact with their voice on the stage. by Lauren K. Alleyne Love—a radical, inclusive, and transformative love—undergirds the work of poet Danez Smith. 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