Patricia Smith is the author of five volumes of poetry, including Blood Dazzler, a finalist for the 2008 National Book Award, Teahouse of the Almighty, a National Poetry Series selection, and Shoulda Been Jimi Savannah. A professor for the City University of New York and a Cave Canem faculty member, she lives in New Jersey with her husband, Edgar Award–winning novelist Bruce DeSilva, her granddaughter Mikaila, and two humungous dogs, Brady and Rondo.
Books Available:
Awards:
Four-time National Poetry Slam Champion
2008 National Book Award Finalist
National Public Radio Best Books of the Year
Paterson Award for Sustained Literary Achievement
Hurston/Wright Legacy Award
Paterson Poetry Prize
National Poetry Series Winner
Praise for Patricia Smith
“Patricia Smith is writing some of the best poetry in America today.” —Sapphire
"Smith's work is direct, colloquial, inclusive, adventuresome." —Gwendolyn Brooks
"One of the best poets around and has been for a long time." —Terrance Hayes
“Smith writes the way Tina Turner sings.” —E. Ethelbert Miller, Small Press Review
“[Smith’s] are not poems of ‘identity.’ They are mellifluous poetic rhetoric; it’s a poetry of segued moments. The personal is embedded in something broader and more cutting. Her poems have story lines, dance numbers, and internal monologues . . . She moves from the distance to the reverential, to the passionate and violent." —Eileen Myles, Village Voice Literary Supplement
“[Smith’s] poems sweat up the pages, caress the reader’s eyes, set fire to the books they’re printed in.” —Bob Holman
“A poetic dynamo.” —Mosaic
“Strong, fearless and passionate . . . [Smith’s] poems indirectly give an insider’s view of what it means to be black and female in America.” —Choice
“Excerpts from Ms. Smith’s published works pour forth words in their succulence, a ‘necessary music’ to evoke the sensual awakenings of a black woman . . . opens theater to the sound of playful, exploratory language that says something and sounds funny and fine saying it.” —New York Times
“[Smith’s] imagination burns us alive with big talk, bop talk, scat talk, sex talk, street talk . . . When a voice like Patricia Smith’s tells the story, the voice transcends the individual pain and helps to nourish us all. [Her] poems are blessings that will move like white light through your veins.” —American Book Review
“[Smith] is a testament to the power of words to change lives.” —Fitchburg, Massachusetts Sentinel and Enterprise
“Smith epitomizes what a performance poet should be: supremely confident, radiating with presence, drilling each word for precise effect, no nuance of inflection too small for consideration." —Orange County Weekly
“Smith is a poet of immense pop and resource and talent.” —Poetry Flash
