Poem of the Week: Danez Smith

               

juxtaposing the black boy & the bullet  

one is hard & the other tried to be

          one is fast & the other was faster

                    one is loud & one is a song

                    with one note & endless rest

           

                     one's whole life is a flash

        both spend their life

        trying to find a warmth to call home

both spark quite the debate,

some folks want to protect them/some think we should just get rid

                                      of the damn things all together.

 

-Danez Smith 

Used by permission.

Danez Smith is a Cave Canem Fellow, Pushcart Nominee, Survivor & Black Queer from St. Paul, MN. Danez was featured in The Academy of American Poets’ Emerging Poets Series by Patricia Smith & was a finalist for the 2013 Rattle Poetry Prize. Danez is the author of hands on ya knees, a chapbook published by Penmanship Books. His full-length collection, ‘[insert] Boy, will be published in 2014 by Yes Yes Books. His writing has appeared or is forthcoming in Poetry Magazine, Ploughshares, Devil’s Lake, The Cortland Review, Anti-, & elsewhere. Danez started writing because of slams & necessity, & placed 6^th in the world at the 2011 Individual World Poetry Slam & is the 2013 Rustbelt Midwest Regional Slam Champion. Danez twerks with the best, has no time for the rest. He writes & lives in Oakland, CA.

 

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