Renowned Poet Danez Smith to Read Poems, Discuss Writing on Sept. 3

Event Information

Time: Roundtable discussion at 4:15 p.m., followed by the reading at 8 p.m.
Date: Tuesday, Sept. 3, 2019

Place: Roundtable discussion in Room 209 of the Joe Rosenfield ’25 Center, 1115 Eighth Ave., Grinnell, followed by the reading in the Hotel Grinnell Auditorium, 925 Park St., Grinnell.

The first Writers@Grinnell events of the fall semester will feature award-winning poet Danez Smith. Smith’s work has been featured widely on platforms such as Buzzfeed, The New York Times, Best American Poetry, Poetry Magazine, as well as The PBS NewsHour and The Late Show with Stephen Colbert.

Event Sponsors

Writers@Grinnell and two cosponsors: the Center for Humanities and the Gender, Women's, and Sexuality Studies program.

Speaker Bio

Danez Smith is a black, queer writer, and performer from St. Paul, Minnesota. Smith is the author of Don't Call Us Dead (Graywolf Press, 2017), winner of the Forward Prize for Best Collection, the Midwest Booksellers Choice Award, and a finalist for the National Book Award. Smith also wrote [insert] boy (YesYes Books, 2014), winner of the Kate Tufts Discovery Award and the Lambda Literary Award for Gay Poetry.

Smith has received fellowships from the Poetry Foundation, the McKnight Foundation, the Montalvo Arts Center, Cave Canem, and the National Endowment for the Arts. A founding member of the Dark Noise Collective, Smith cohosts VS with Franny Choi, a podcast sponsored by the Poetry Foundation and Postloudness. Graywolf Press will publish Smith’s third poetry collection, Homie, in January 2020.