About Danez Smith
Danez Smith is the author of the collection
[insert] Boy (forthcoming,
YesYes Books) and the chapbook
hands on ya knees (
Penmanship books, 2013). Danez is a 2014 Ruth Lilly and Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Poetry Fellowship Finalist. Danez is the recipient of fellowships from the McKnight Foundation, Cave Canem, VONA, and elsewhere. He is a founding member of the multi-genre, multicultural Dark Noise Collective. His writing has appeared in
Poetry Magazine,
Ploughshares,
Beloit Poetry Journal, and elsewhere. In Poetry Slam, he is the 2014 NUPIC Champion, a 2011 IWPS finalist, the reigning 2-time Rustbelt Individual Champion and was on 2014 Championship Team Sad Boy Supper Club.
Danez was featured in American Academy of Poet's Emerging Writers Series by National Book Award Finalist Patricia Smith. Like her, he bridges the poetics of the stage to that of the page. Danez's work transcends arbitrary boundaries to present work that is gripping, dismantling of oppression constructs, and striking on the human heart. Often centered around intersections of race, class, sexuality, faith, and social justice, Danez uses rhythm, fierce raw power, and image to re-imagine the world as takes it apart in his work. He writes and lives between Oakland, California and St. Paul, Minnesota.
