LibGuides: African American Women Writers: Patricia Smith

Patricia Smith (1955- ), American poet, journalist, playwright and performance artist, is a prominent figure in modern African-American literature. Her poetry is noteworthy for its emotional power, its easy command of vernacular and slang, and its imaginative range. Over the years Smith has earned widespread acclaim for her spoken-word performances, and her talent for public reading has helped shape the force and vigour of her poetry. At the same time, Smith's experiences as a journalist have played a key role in shaping the clarity and precision of her verse style, lending her poems an element of clarity and directness that makes them accessible to a broad readership.

Genre: Poetry

More about Patricia Smith at ProQuest One Literature

By Patricia Smith

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Big Towns, Big Talk by Patricia Smith
Patricia Smith’s second collection of poetry reflects upon relationships, street life, and worlds familiar and unfamiliar. In these glimmering poems, the language itself comes alive and touches the soul, demonstrating why Smith is a popular performance poet.
Incendiary Art: poems by Patricia Smith
Patricia Smith fearlessly confronts the tyranny against the black male body and the tenacious grief of mothers in her compelling new collection, Incendiary Art. She writes an exhaustive lament for mothers of the "dark magicians," and revisits the devastating murder of Emmett Till. These dynamic sequences serve as a backdrop for present-day racial calamities and calls for resistance.
Shoulda Been Jimi Savannah: poems by Patricia Smith
Patricia Smith explores the second wave of the Great Migration. Shifting from spoken word to free verse to traditional forms, she reveals "that soul beneath the vinyl."
Teahouse of the Almighty : poems by Patricia Smith
From Lollapalooza to Carnegie Hall, Patricia Smith has taken the stage as this nation's premier performance poet. Featured in the film Slamnation and on the HBO series Def Poetry Jam, Smith is back with her first book in over a decade--a National Poetry Series winner weaving passionate, bluesy narratives into an empowering, finely tuned celebration of poetry's liberating power.

About Patricia Smith

Betwixt, Between, or Beyond?: Negotiating ‚Trans’ formations from the Liminal Sphere of Contemporary Black Performance Poetry by Birgit M. Bauridl
Investigates a vast array of performances ranging from online recordings to political rallies to the poetry slam and Broadway stage. Black poets discussed come from diverse personal and cultural backgrounds and include, e.g., Patricia Smith, Staceyann Chin, Taalam Acey, Bryonn Bain, and Tshaka Campbell. Developing an approach rooted in anthropological, ethnographic, and theatrical perceptions of performance, the study addresses issues such as the black experience, memory and identity.
“On Patricia Smith’s Shoulda Been Jimi Savannah.” American Poet 46: 29–31. by Gregory Orr
Patricia Smith came to the page through the oral performance world—she was a four-time individual
champion at the annual National Poetry Slam. She’s gone to enlivening poetry on the page, untaming this art form that at times threatens to settle into genteel complacency and forget its sources in incantation and language-magic. There’s no chance of such an aural amnesia when you read
Smith’s sixth and newest collection.

African American Women Writers

More about Patricia Smith at ProQuest One Literature

By Patricia Smith

More by Patricia Smith

About Patricia Smith