Patricia Smith - Poetry.LA Interview

PATRICIA SMITH is the author of nine critically-acclaimed books of poetry, including "Unshuttered" (TriQuarterly Books, 2023), "Incendiary Art" (TriQuarterly Books, 2017), winner of the 2018 Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award, the 2018 NAACP Image Award, and the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize; "Shoulda Been Jimi Savannah" (Coffee House Press, 2012), winner of the Lenore Marshall Prize from the Academy of American Poets; Blood Dazzler (Coffee House Press, 2008), a National Book Award finalist. She began her career in the 1980s as a slam poet, becoming a four-time individual champion of the National Poetry Slam.

[@starlingcity]

What a great conversation and Lynne is a terrific host! I appreciated Patricia's insights into persona which speak to my own project and the idea of persona as witness. Poets have a special lens on the world which can be used to express the feelings, thoughts and perceptions of others. It is up to the reader to access the experience for themselves through the arts. All arts attempt to share a way of looking at the world. Thank goodness for that! Looking forward to Unshuttered.

[@Laure-Anne]

What a warm, deeply intelligent, most interesting interview! Bravo! How great that the 19th century photos have an authentic life again, and in the poems of such a most moving and brilliant poet!

[@dianarosen3861]

Wonderful! Patricia Smith is always poet and teacher in interviews as I learned when I first "met" her at the Dodge Poetry Festival. I marvel how she reveals the how and why of her work in grace and skill. And, of course, her solid experience in slam has made her a fabulous reader of her own work. Thanks, so much for having her on Poetry LA.

[@rievans57]

Interesting.

[@geordiejones5618]

Her journalist career is lowkey shameful, but her ability to bounce back from fabrication is impressive. Its a good thing she stuck to fiction, bc reporting truth clearly wasn't her best skill. I'd like to hear her apologize for her choices at the Globe especially, where apparently 50 of her columns included fictional characters.