Danez Smith

American poet

Danez Smith is an African-American, poet, writer and performer from St. Paul, Minnesota. They are queer, non-binary and HIV-positive. They are the author of the poetry collections [insert] Boy and Don't Call Us Dead: Poems, both of which have received multiple awards.

Danez Smith

Quotes

edit
  • For me, it’s about writing a good poem. The questions of page and performance come later. My first allegiance is with what the poem wants to be, in terms of how it looks. The question of performance is something I ask myself at a later date once the poem is finished, when I ask myself, ‘can I read this to an audience one time through and be able to make them feel something?’ Some poems are just easier to translate to a space of performance than others…
  • Naming is important. In many black cultures you learn the importance of giving the right name or not naming things…
edit
 
Wikipedia
Wikipedia has an article about: