As part of the Helios Program Speaker Series, award-winning poet and performer Danez Smith visited UW-Platteville in the Lundeen Lecture Hall in Doudna on Oct. 18 from 6:30 p.m. to 8 p.m. Smith earned their bachelor’s  from UW-Madison as a First Wave Urban Arts Scholar. 

Smith is a black, queer, non-binary and poz (HIV positive) poet who uses their work to contexualize past political and moral issues in order to connect to an audience on a personal level for topics that are difficult to think about.

Smith’s works include “[Insert] Boy” (2014), “Homie” (2020) and “Don’t Call Us Dead” (2017), in which they were a finalist for the 2017 National Book Award and the Forward Poetry Prize. They have also won the Lambda Literary Award, the Kate Tufts Discovery Award and the Midwest Booksellers Choice Award. 

To start off the evening, Smith asked the audience if anyone had been to a poetry reading before, and then described a poetry reading as an exchange of energy. They encouraged the audience to respond emotionally however they felt was right. 

Smith performed “My President,” first, from “Homie.” “My President” emphasizes that the people who live in this country are not the people being represented. Among the final lines of this poem was, “Show me to our nation. My only border is my body.”

Next, Smith talked about the murder of Renisha McBride, who went up to a house to ask for directions and was shot through the head by the homeowner from behind his door in 2013. 

Smith’s performance of “waiting on you to die so I can be myself,” brought the room to complete silence. Smith mentioned that their fans from the LGBTQ community often relate to the pain and emotions of this piece.

From their collection “Don’t Call Us Dead,” Smith recited, “summer, somewhere.” The poem contemplates the story of Emmett Till, a 14-year-old boy who was murdered for allegedly whistling at a white woman in 1955. 

Indiebound.org writes that the poem “imagines an afterlife for black men shot by police, a place where suspicion, violence and grief are forgotten and replaced with the safety, love and longevity they deserved here on earth.”

Smith also performed unpublished works, including a poem about being gay in Sioux Falls on a weekend vacation and two others titled “the end of guns” and “the end of money.” Smith’s unpublished book includes elements of their home life, and they used the experience to make sure they still wanted to write poetry. 

Dr. Kara Candito, Associate Professor of English, led a talk with Smith after their performance.

Dr. Candito asked Smith how they wrote seemingly improvised revisions into their work, such as moments of internal thought or pausing. Smith responded that during the writing process, they “imagine the other person on the other side listening,” transforming a static poem into a live conversation. During 2020, due to COVID-19, they struggled with their creative process. They emphasized that social interaction is needed to be an artist. 

Smith revealed that the writing process differs for each piece. “My President” was nearly complete after the first draft. In contrast, “waiting on you to die so I can be myself” was an eight-year writing process wherein everything about the poem changed except the title. 

Smith said that they refer to previous work whenever they write newer work as a way to reflect on how their thoughts have evolved. They revealed that they recognized their earlier writing came from a place of trauma and that it seemed as though they were arguing that they mattered. “Homie” (2020), and later works, are “what happens when you move past argumentation,” Smith explained.

Dr. Candito asked Smith about works that have impacted them. Smith’s list included “The Prophet” by Kahlil Gibran, “The Scarlet Letter” by Nathaniel Hawthorne, “The Silver Service” by Susanne O’Leary and “Invisible No More: Police Violence Against Black Women and Women of Color” by Andrea J. Ritchie. “Essentially all my poems are trying to be Alanis Morissette,” Smith also said.

In an open forum after the talk, Smith was asked if they had written in another language before. Smith said that they lived in Panama for a little bit and have tried writing poems in Spanish. 

Smith was also asked if they thought that them being queer had affected the content of the poems. Smith replied, “It’s my responsibility to write what I want to write.” 

Smith explained that “nothing is universal” except for the big emotions and that trying to erase the person who is feeling these emotions will not help.

When asked if writing poetry solidified Smith’s identity for themself or if it has made it more complicated, they responded, “I am still very much my mom’s son.” However, with age and confidence, Smith explained that they can allow themself to have fluidity in their identity. 

Smith advised new writers in the audience that “there is a pressure to make your book about something … (but) the process is more important than the product.” They also stressed that people should not talk themselves out of trying.

Afterward, one student in attendance explained, “There were a couple poems actually, that made me tear up,” such as “summer, somewhere.”

Another student added that Smith’s writing is visceral, powerful and that she enjoyed “My President” because it emphasizes community. 

Smith’s writing is included on the list of readings taught in Gateway courses within the Helios program. These courses are “designed to increase access to Humanities-based learning for all students and to help first-year students feel connected to their peers and to Platteville,” said co-director of the Helios Program Dr. Amanda Tucker.

The initial goal was to bring in a speaker “who was connected to one of the Helios Certificate’s thematic clusters, in law and conflict resolution or the environment and sustainability,” Dr. Tucker explained. 

However, Smith was chosen “because not only are they a brilliant poet, they also are an incredibly engaging performer, which we thought was an important consideration for our speaker series,” Dr. Tucker continued. 

Reflecting on Smith’s performance, Dr. Tucker said, “There is something really beautiful about sharing an artistic experience with a roomful of people that is hard to capture in words; various attendees described the event as energizing, joyful, and … good for the soul.” 

Co-director of the Helios program Dr. Katie Kalish added, “I think many students walked away from the room with a more nuanced understanding of the value of the Humanities.”