UW-Madison First Wave Alum Danez Smith to Read from His Book Bluff at the Wisconsin Book Festival: Feeling — and Reflecting — the World They See
by Jonathan Gramling
Danez Smith, a poet who will be reading from his collection of poems Bluff at the Madison Central Library October 18, was part of the founding cohort of UW-Madison’s First Wave Program, part of the cohort that laid the foundation of creativity and academic excellence that the program has fostered ever since.
Smith found their creative voice while in high school, participating in a theater class at his high school in their native St. Paul that was anything but conventional.
“Our teacher, Jay Mandell, who is still a teacher, student and co-worker and co-conspirator of mine, she taught her classes out of the traditions of Augusto Boal, the Theater of the Oppressed. We were writing our own plays about things that mattered to us as the youth in the room.”
Smith’s creativity was unleashed.
“One day, some poets came who were cool,” Smith recalled. “As they were performing and we were mesmerized, we also realized that the things that they would call a poem were very similar to what we would call a monologue at the time. A couple of us got together and said, ‘We want to do an open mic. We want to write some poems.’ And it took off from there. I became involved in a bunch of youth poetry programs, anything that I could do here in the city. I found a community and the open mic to go to. I went to open mic at this place called The Blue Nile. I would sneak in there. It was 18-years plus to enter. So me and my other under-18 friends would all go really, really early when the restaurant turned into a bar. As long as you were in the restaurant before it became the bar, they wouldn’t kick you out. So we would go there super early just to be with all of the poets and musicians who would come later on.”
Smith was also exposed to the national poetry slam community.
“I got to go to Brave New Voices International Youth Poetry Slam Festival, which is still going on to this day,” Smith said. “That was incredible as well. I was a budding poet and lover of poetry. That first year that I started writing poems, we went to B&B and there were brave new voices and there waiting for us was a community of 300-500 youth poets from all across the country and from around the world who were hungry and were writing out poems. That was powerful. There was a community of people who were doing this kind of thing.”
When Smith graduated from high school, they found a new community of creative people in First Wave.
“I continued to find myself collectivizing,” Smith said. “In ways, poetry from its genesis in my life has always been about community as well and not just about the language. It was about the people who are gathering to make it happen.”
While in First Wave, Smith was able to meet poets and would always pick their brains in how they made a living through there poetry. They were envisioning their future.
“My last 1-2 years at UW-Madison, I was able to go to the Cave Canem Retreat, which is a wonderful and diaphoric gathering of Black poets,” Smith said. “You get to go for three years. It’s a week of community. And you workshop with dream writers. I got to work with Nikky Finney and Patricia Smith. I got to sit at the feet of Nikki Giovanni. That was really magnetizing for me and I got a lot of new friends and mentors there.”
After graduation, Smith worked for First Wave for a year before heading back to St. Paul/Minneapolis where they worked in the public schools before heading out to San Francisco to work with Brave New Voices. And then Smith got some grants that changed the trajectory of their life.
“I was doing shows,” Smith said. “I was still slamming. I was living a poet’s life with a day job. But then I got two grants in 2014, both for $25,000. It was the most money that I had ever had in my life. I made myself a promise. When I got the first half of the money, I was dealing with my mental health. I recently got an HIV diagnosis. That threw my own mental health for a loop as well. So when I got the first grant, I was like, ‘I’m going to go part-time and work for a little bit, 60 percent, just so I could have some extra space to be a mess. Then when I got the second grant a couple of months later, I said, ‘Okay, I think if I am going to try to be a full-time artist, maybe now is the time to do it while I have this grant.’ So I quit my job, moved back to Minnesota and tried to make my life happen as an artist. And it’s been going ever since.”
Smith has published four full-length and two chat books. His latest book is Bluff.
“Bluff is about my relationship to my home of Minneapolis/St. Paul in Minnesota,” Smith said. “It’s about our history, our future. It’s also about the moment and the uprising that happened after the murder of George Floyd. It’s about thinking about my other home which is poetry nopw that I’ve been a poet for more than half of my life. I think it’s really trying to think about critique rescue and ultimately fortify my relationship to poetry. I think about what are the uses of poetry, what the role is of being a poet, what are the limits of poetry, but also why do we still do this thing. 2020 and the years that followed really did a lot to transform my relationships to both of my homes. And even though I wasn’t writing poems at the time, by the time that I returned to the page again and I looked up and said, ‘What have I been writing about now that I have been writing again? What have I been writing about my homes?’ I turned my attentions more fully towards them because obviously my curiosity was already there. I think my book is trying to make peace with the land and make peace with the language too.”
Smith has received numerous awards for his work. Two of them stand out. The first gave him confirmation as a poet.
“One award that was particularly meaningful to me was the Forward Prize for best collection that I won for Don’t Call Us Dead, my second collection,” Smith said. “The Forward Prize is arguably the biggest award in Britain. That one really surprised me. I was really honored to be nominated, especially nominated for a prize for a country that I am not of. And I thought the other writers I was nominated with were so deserving including Tracy K. Smith who was, is and will remain a hero of mine. When they called my name, I almost thought they had made a mistake. But I think that affirmed something for me, about the value of my work.”
The second award was memorable because it came from Smith’s people.
“Another award, which I didn’t really win, was being nominated for the NAACP Image Award,” Smith said. “I thought that was so cool. I was so mad that it happened during the height of the pandemic. If it was any other year, I would have been able to take my Momma to the Image Awards. What Black child doesn’t want to give their mother something to brag about like that? She still got to do her bragging. She still got to say that I was nominated. But I really wanted her to put on a pretty dress and come out to the Imge Awards. But that was really cool. As much as a lot of the poetry awards are so beautiful and great and I am blessed to live in the day where Black poets and our work is respected and we are abundant and we are often on those same panels that are picking those awards. But it was the first time I got nominated for something that was from my people. I was nominated for the same thing that Beyoncé had. You think about that great legacy of Black folks who have been nominated for an Image Award and I get to count myself among that number. It’s really cool.”
Smith hopes people will turn out for his October 18th appearance as a part of the Wisconsin Book Festival.
“You’re going to laugh,” Smith promised people who will attend. “You’re going to cry. You might disagree with me a little bit. But I hope you leave moved and maybe possibly transformed. I think Madison is also chief on my list of a place that has raised me and a place that I love to return to. I learned a lot about myself and I made some really treasured relationships in Madison. And I love the city itself, especially the hues of Madison. It’s always good to see folks. And there is always something special about the shows in Madison. So I hope folks come out. I’ll be happy to see you and hug you around your neck. And I promise to make the poems real good that night.”
Danez Smith has been making their poems real good for people to see the world through their eyes and feelings. Come take a peek.
